Where is the "H" mintmark on 1 millieme 1938-AH 1357 coin?

For this coin:

N#9317

The Numista webpage indicates that the AD 1938 - AH 1357 dated coin in this series was minted by the Heaton Mint.

I have an example of this coin and do not see an “H” mintmark on either its obverse or its reverse. I have also looked at the photographs of coins with the same date on the Numista webpage and can't find an “H” mintmark on those coins either. 

Sometimes, the Heaton Mint was very clever at hiding the “H” mintmark in the detail of the designs or legends of the coins they minted, so am I just not finding it, or did they not include their “H” mintmark on this particular coin? 

For comparison, I also have an Egyptian 1 millieme coin dated AD 1935 - AH 1354

N#7719

on which the “H” mintmark from the Heaton Mint is clearly visible on the reverse immediately below the date.

If the AD 1938 - AH 1357 Egyptian 1 millieme coin is a Heaton Mint product on which the “H” mintmark was not included, are their other examples from Egypt or other countries where coins from the Heaton Mint do not bear the “H” mintmark somewhere on their obverse or reverse? 

Here is my coin, and no H either….

The Numista coin page N#9317 says there is no mintmark on these coins from any of the three mints.

There was a recent post (if I remember right) discussing coins from Heaton without mintmarks.  When I get a chance I'll find it unless somebody beats me to it.

Here Heaton mint mark – Numista but doesn't discuss coins for Egypt.

I have the book of Heatons worldwide output which includes mintage and mintmarks.  Up until the death of  king Fuad the H mintmark was used. For Farouks coins from 1938 onwards no mintmark was used either by Heatons or lCl who were subcontractors and formerly known as Kings Norton mint, hence KN mintmark on some coins worldwide

I millieme 1938 has low mintage of just 820,000. 1939 is over 9 million

Thanks for all the information on this topic.

Two final thoughts:

For what it is worth - my 47th Edition of the SCWC indicates that all of the coins issued under KIng Farouk (even the gold ones) were minted at the “British Royal Mint”. It makes no mention of any Heaton Mint or Bombay/Mumbai Mint coins. That would explain the lack of mintmarks on these coins. Is this just another SCWC error?

vic65: at the end of your post, you state: 

“I millieme 1938 has low mintage of just 820,000. 1939 is over 9 million”

Both the Numista webpage and my SCWC indicate the mintage of the AD 1938/AH 1357 date for this coin was 26,240,000 and neither list a 1939 date for this coin. Did you get the mintage figures you stated from the Heaton Mint book you mentioned? 

The book l have has the official mintage taken from the records of the mint which still survive. It has lots of additional info inc the last shipment the mint ever sent to Egypt in 1943 were lost due to enemy action.  The list of countries they supplied coins to  is considerable, dies, blanks, minting machinery and even staff from Birmingham to help set up the mint in places like Burma. Lots of coins in the book do show no mintmark however.

I will scan the relevant page for your coin

Here is the page for the coin you have, all information taken from the original mint records so no doubt as to their accuracy compared to KM catalogues

The Schön catalog divides KM# 358 into two types, Schön# 65.1 for 1938 and Schön# 65.2 for 1945 to 1950.

Schön# 65.1 (and several other Egyptian types issued 1937-1937) are listed as Heaton and King's Norton with no mint mark, other types are listed as Royal Mint. The catalog has no mention of Heaton or KN for coins issued 1941 and later.

Schön often has more detailed mint information than KM.

The book l reffer to also list Heatons competitors.

Before Heatons began minting for Egypt in 1904 their coinage was struck at Berlin mint.  And also 2.8 million copper-nickel denominations of 1/10 to  1 guerche were struck by Vienna mint.

 Coins were struck at Bombay mint in 1921

The royal mint in 1923,

Budapest mint 1929

Vic65

Here is the page for the coin you have, all information taken from the original mint records so no doubt as to their accuracy compared to KM catalogues

Thanks you for the valuable information, just to confirm that is from" A Numismatic History of the Birmingham Mint "? 

bjherbison

The Schön catalog divides KM# 358 into two types, Schön# 65.1 for 1938 and Schön# 65.2 for 1945 to 1950.

 

Schön# 65.1 (and several other Egyptian types issued 1937-1937) are listed as Heaton and King's Norton with no mint mark, other types are listed as Royal Mint. The catalog has no mention of Heaton or KN for coins issued 1941 and later.

This aligns with the Egyptian Catalogue (MHC): for Egypt • 1 Millieme - Farouk was struck by Heaton only in 1938. The later issues, specifically 1945 and 1947, were struck in Bombay, while the 1950 issue was struck by the Royal Mint.

Royal mint also produced all of Farouk's silver coinage (2, 5, 10 and 20 Piastres), only the silver hexagon 2 Qirsh - Farouk 
1363 (1944)  was struck in South Africa with lower finesse 600. 

Dr_Teek

bjherbison

The Schön catalog divides KM# 358 into two types, Schön# 65.1 for 1938 and Schön# 65.2 for 1945 to 1950.

 

 

This aligns with the Egyptian Catalogue (MHC): for Egypt • 1 Millieme - Farouk was struck by Heaton only in 1938. The later issues, specifically 1945 and 1947, were struck in Bombay, while the 1950 issue was struck by the Royal Mint.

Royal mint also produced all of Farouk's silver coinage (2, 5, 10 and 20 Piastres), only the silver hexagon 2 Qirsh - Farouk 
1363 (1944)  was struck in South Africa with lower finesse 600. 

But Heatons mint record clearly shows they produced over 9 million bronze 1 millieme coins  in 1939

Ye ole plot thickens…

The book about the Heaton Mint that Vic65 provide a page from indicates that possibly three dates are missing from the Numista page (and the SCWC) for the KM# 358/Numista 9317 Egyptian 1 millieme bronze coin minted under the reign of King Farouk: 1939, 1942 and 1943. Taken together, the stated mintages for these three dates total about 25 million coins.

I searched on the internet for any Egyptian bronze 1 millieme coins with one of these dates but did not see any. I also find it strange that no Numista member has apparently ever asked to add one or more of those dates to the webpage for the N-9317 coin because they have an Egyptian 1 millieme coin with one of those missing dates. While it is possible that the 1942 and 1943 mintages could have been lost in transit during World War II, one would think some or most of the 1939 mintage would have made it to Egypt before World War II started. So, what happened to all of the 1939, 1942 and 1943 coins?

It is interesting that on the Numista web page for this coin series (N-9317) the 1938 date is by far the most common coin among Numista members who have a N-9317 type coin, yet the Heaton Mint book page indicates it had the lowest mintage by far (less than 1,000,000) of all of the Heaton mint produced bronze 1 millieme coins.

The Heaton Mint book page also lists an additional date for this coin:

N#21532

which is the copper-nickel version of the 1 millieme coin minted under King Farouk that has a center hole. Numista and the SCWC only list a 1938 date for that coin, but the Heaton Mint book lists a 1939 date for this coin in addition to the 1938 date. I didn't see any requests from Numista members to add that date to the N-21532 web page either. So, what happened to the 1939 mintage of the copper-nickel 1 millieme coin?

I noticed these newly listed dates, and as an Egyptian collector, I’ve never encountered these issues nor heard of their existence. Another interesting point is that when the mintages for these dates are summed, they match the total figures recorded in KM. This suggests that the coins may have actually been minted in the ‘missing’ years, but the die year was not updated—i.e., they continued using the 1938-dated dies for subsequent production runs.

If Heatons entire 1943 production never made it to Egypt and now lies on the seabed then it's possible that they did mint those missing years but were never delivered for some reason.  I'm not sure where Heatons museum collection ended up as it contains examples of all their production, l wonder if the author is still alive although it was 1981

Okay, I think I have this figured out now.

The page from the book that vic65 provided has all the information - it just was a bit difficult to interpret.

And Dr_Teek was on the right track with his idea of “frozen” dates.

These comments affect the following coins:

N#9317

N#21532

N#10270

N#5961

N#4825

For all of the Heaton Mint small denomination King Farouk coins, there are two headings for each grouping: “AH 1357/1938” and “AH 1357/1941”. Those are the “frozen” dates. The Heaton Mint -and/or ICI/King's Norton Mint produced these coins from 1938 to 1943 - but with only two “frozen” dates (and no mintmarks). All of the ½, 1, 2, and some of the 5 and 10 millieme coins were produced from 1938 to 1943 and carry the “frozen” date of “AH 1357/1938”; some of the 5 and 10 millieme coins were also produced from 1941 to 1943 and those coins carry the “frozen” date of “AH 1360/1941”. I believe the small “m” in front of the AD dates in each group indicates the actual mintage of each coin in that particular year. One minor mystery is why the bronze 1 millieme coins actually made in 1942 and 1943 do not carry the “frozen” date of AH 1360/1941 like the copper-nickel 5 and 10 milliemes coins produced from 1941 to 1943; perhaps this occurred because none of the 1 millieme coins were produced in 1941 (when new dies with the AH 1360/1941 “frozen” dates were produced for the 5 and 10 millieme coins. 

So, the following comments are needed on the Numista web pages for these coins:

For the ½ millieme AH 1357/1938 coin: “Actually minted in 1939”

For the bronze 1 millieme AH 1357/1938 coin: “Minted in 1938 (820,000), 1939 (9,180,000), 1942 (12,400,000) and 1943 (3,840,000).”

For the copper-nickel 1 millieme AH 1357/1939 coin: “Minted in 1938 (1,980,000) and 1939 (1,520,000).”

For the copper-nickel 2 milliemes AH 1357/1938 coin: "Actually minted in 1939"."

For the copper-nickel 5 milliemes AH 1357/1938 coin: “Minted in 1938 (1,600,000) and 1939 (5,400,000).”

For the copper-nickel 10 milliemes AH 1357/1938 coin: “Minted in 1938 (252,000) and 1939 (3,248,000).”

For the copper-nickel 5 milliemes AH 1360/1941 coin: "Minted in 1941 (1,520,000), 1942 (8,480,000) and 1943 (1,500,000)."

For the copper-nickel 10 milliemes AH 1360/1941 coin: “Minted in 1941 (644,000), 1942 (3,676,000) and 1943 (1, 002,000).”

 Note that if one adds up all of the given mintages for the stated production years, the total matches the total mintage figures given in the SCWC and Numista web pages for the “frozen” date versions of each coin.

Ane one correction:

The Numista web page for the copper-nickel 5 milliemes and copper-nickel 10 milliemes coins with the “frozen” date of “AH 1360/1941” indicates that those coins were minted at the Bombay/Mumbai (India) Mint. Based upon the information provided by vic65, we now know that is incorrect. All of those coins were produced by the Heaton Mint or ICI/King's Norton Mint in Birmingham, UK. 

Thus, there are examples of these coins minted for all of the “mDATE” entries in the reference provided by vic65. However, because of the “frozen” dates, it is impossible to determine in which year a given coin was actually minted (except for the ½ millieme and 2 milliemes coins, which were only minted in one year.

Again, thanks to all who contributed to this discussion; together we have come up with some new information on these coins - that is what makes collecting coins both interesting and fun!

For added interest there are 7 pages of Heatons Egyptian coins and I have now scanned and sent them to Dr_Teek 

Done updating the pages, please check them out and let me know if there is any needed updates, thank you all for your valuable contribution, really appreciate it 😊

Dr_Teek

Changes look great. Thanks for making the updates.

I corrected one small typo on one of the pages ("1939" should have been “1938”).

The only thing missing now is a statement answering the question that started this discussion:

There should be a comment indicating that there are no mintmarks on any of these coins from any of the mints that produced them.

Early on during this discussion, rsirian1 stated:

“The Numista coin page N#9317 says there is no mintmark on these coins from any of the three mints.”

I didn't see that information on any of the Numista pages for the affected coins; I think it would be a good idea to add it back again so people who own examples of these coins will know that no mintmarks were ever present on these coins.

thoram2

 I think it would be a good idea to add it back again so people who own examples of these coins will know that no mintmarks were ever present on these coins.

Done, A note was add in the comment section. 

Additionally I added A Numismatic History of the Birmingham Mint as a book and shortly it will be added as a reference to be associated to the lines of the pages. 

The book is expensive but really worthwhile if you collect certain series/ countries. I bought it for the lndian states such as Travancore where dies,blanks and minted coins were shipped to lndia. The well known Burma Peacock coins were all supplied by Heatons  inc a complete mint to be built in Mandalay palace grounds, men from Birmingham were sent to accompany the shipment on an overland mule train and to supervise and train the locals for 2 years. What an adventure that must have been for those men.

Dr_Teek

thoram2

 I think it would be a good idea to add it back again so people who own examples of these coins will know that no mintmarks were ever present on these coins.

Done, A note was add in the comment section. 

 

Additionally I added A Numismatic History of the Birmingham Mint as a book and shortly it will be added as a reference to be associated to the lines of the pages. 

TBM ref. Number added to the book

Another snippet of information I had not spotted, the letter ‘m’ preceding a date signifies the actual year the coin was minted in.

my actually reading different parts of the book shows some interesting things, The Royal mint borrowed a lever press in 1871 from Heatons and then hired 4 more in 1872 and then decided to buy all their machinery 24 in all  from 1882 -1920

Vic65

Another snippet of information I had not spotted, the letter ‘m’ preceding a date signifies the actual year the coin was minted in.

 

that confirms our previous discussion. thank you for bringing this up