Mohawk

Very good point, James.  I have some of those myself  

Now....with the preface that I can sometimes be rough on these and I'm basing this on Photograde, based on the photos, I'm going to call it G-6 in Details with rim damage.  I think the rim damage would keep this coin from numerically grading at NGC.  It's almost VG details, but Photograde says you have to have three letters of Liberty visible on the shield and I only see the L, the Y and part of the I, so that's only 2.5 letters.  I wish I could split grade it because that reverse is easily a solid VG, but a reverse doesn't carry a weaker obverse.  I also want to state that the shield does look damaged, which could play into the lack of visible letters, so I don't know if that would make it a VG Details-damaged. 
As for authenticity, I don't see anything that's shooting off red flags to me there.  The mint mark style looks correct, and it's not of the very small S style that debuted in 1875.  According to NGC Coin Explorer, there are deceptive counterfeits of the 1872-S with that style of mint mark, so you definitely do not have one of those counterfeits.  However, I'm going to hope that someone who knows more about Liberty Seated coinage chimes in here.

I'm with Jonathan....actual collector's coins are where it's at.  Bullion hoarding is most definitely not collecting and you could definitely make an argument that it's even a very poor investment tool.  Bullion is always a crapshoot.  Let me tell you about my favorite local coin shop.  They had a little bit of everything....lots of U.S. classic coinage, moderns, world stuff, some ancients and, of course, bullion.  It's near impossible to have a brick and mortar shop these days without getting into bullion.  My fiancée and I were regular customers for years.  Then, a few weeks ago, we went down to check things out and do some shopping. The owner was inside, packing everything up.  He told us that he was closing up shop because he couldn't handle bullion fluctuations any longer.  He'd buy a monster box of Silver Eagles, have to pay $5,000 over spot value and if silver went down, that $5,000 could just disappear.  And that did happen to him.  A few times.  So, yeah, bullion killed my favorite coin shop.  Since you asked for opinions, I'm going to be honest with you, share my opinion and say this.........stay away from bullion and get into actual coin collecting.
~Tom

Jimbo's correct on both counts.....that's a spender.

Very good point, James.  I have some of those myself  

You're quite welcome and I'm glad I could be of some help to you!

Welcome to the forum Robert.  Have you calibrated your new scale? Does it weigh out to Hundredths such as 0.00?  The Lincoln Cent is one of the lightest coins the U.S. Mint ever produced.  In this day and time you will probably find MANY more Lincoln Cents weighing in the 2.4 to 2.7 range because of the new (since 1982) Zinc cored Lincoln Cents.  Those made prior to 1982 (and even some in 1982, which was the transitional year for the metal composition of the Lincoln Cent) will be made of predominantly copper which will weigh in the 3.11 gram range. It makes perfect sense that you have seen less than 5 pennies weighing 3.11 grams out of hundreds because copper Cents are a thing of the past, unfortunately.
Your 1990 Cent is not supposed to have a mint mark.  The only Lincoln Cent ever produced with a Philly (P) mint mark was in 2017. Your 1990 Cent is what is referred to as a Zincoln Cent because it is predominately made of zinc as explained above. Make sure your scale is calibrated correctly and then weigh your coins.  This is the best advice I can give.  

The Moroccan Cast Money Tree
Or, A Journey to the Deepest Corners of Numismatic History
by Jason Poe

Any of you who know me know that I’m a fan of Moroccan coinage. The simple geometric patterns, the symbolism, the history, the story – it’s all fascinating to me. My latest endeavor was brought about by a recent Heritage auction purchase – and here’s the story about why it is so special. This is one of the rarest pieces in my collection, and also one of the most fragile. Funny story: when it arrived on my front doorstep, I came home to find the box bashed in. I knew what was in the box, so my heart nearly dropped because I knew how fragile the piece was. Luckily, Heritage has experience in shipping fragile items – inside the big box, was a smaller, sturdier box. Inside that smaller box was many layers of bubble wrap. Inside that was a cardboard reinforced envelope with the item inside. What was the item? Read on to find out!


You may be familiar with the cast bronze coins produced by Morocco, known as the falus. If you aren’t familiar with them, I have one pictured below. This is a 4 falus coin from AH 1287 (1870 AD). They weigh roughly 11.5 grams, and are usually somewhere around 28 mm (slightly larger than a modern US small dollar coin). They are hefty coins, and usually found in low grades. They are very crude, made from hand engraved punches. Sometimes, they have unique errors like the one I have shown here – notice the date is “12887.”





These coins were made by the casting method. There would be a clay mold (one each for the obverse and reverse), and the coiner would punch the designs into the clay mold. When the clay was baked and hardened, they could then put the two pieces together to form a chamber into which the molten metal would be poured. However, rather than just casting one piece at a time, they would make a channel between pieces (called a gutter) and cast four pieces per branch. These branches were joined at the top to make a “tree,” and 12 coins would be cast in a single pour. When the metal cooled, the coins would be broken apart and the jagged bits would be filed down. Sometimes, as you can see at the top of the coin shown above, it wasn’t a clean break. Sometimes a chunk of the coin would be missing, sometimes a bit would be left over. This is known as the “sprue.”

Most cast coins use a similar method. For example, China and Japan used the tree method to cast coins. To get an idea what the mold looked like, see this picture of a Chinese mold (I couldn’t find a Moroccan mold).





Sometimes, it's possible to find unbroken pieces. Usually, they come as two- or three-coin groups. Sometimes, you can find an entire branch of 4. If you get really, very lucky, you’ll find an unbroken tree. When I first started collecting Moroccan coinage, I read a brief snippet in Krause: “occasionally entire or partial trees are found on the market.” My curiosity was piqued.

Over the years, it turns out that a few of these unbroken trees have shown up. Usually, they are of the lowest denomination, a single falus. The higher up you go (1 falus, 2 falus, and 4 falus coins were made), the rarer the trees seem to become. As I dove into researching these pieces, attempting to locate one (at least to see it – I never thought I’d be able to buy it!), I came across a quaint book by William H. Valentine, titled “Modern Copper Coins of the Muhammadan States.” It appears to be handwritten, and the illustrations are all hand drawn. However, he has a description of a certain item: “This drawing represents the method in which the Moorish copper money is cast and consists of twelve one falus pieces, each coin being subsequently broken off. The original is in the possession of the British Museum, who kindly gave me permission to make this reproduction.” I searched the archives of the British museum (their entire collection is digitized online), but alas, I could not find this piece. It appears they may have sold it. These falus were cast in AH 1261, or roughly 1844 AD.





The next reference I found to these Moroccan cast money trees was in the 1922 Numismatist. A Mr. A. R. Frey gave a presentation at the 1922 ANA Convention, and then had a display. He talked about coinage of varying shapes besides round – triangle, square, octagonal, and other odd shapes. One of the items he presented was this tree of falus cast in AH 1278 (1861 AD). Again, this tree is of the one falus denomination.



Numismatic history was silent on these cast trees for a few decades, as far as I could find, but then Stacks and Bowers had an auction at the 2018 ANA. They had not one, but two! different examples of the unbroken tree. The pedigree note on that auction gave me a fantastic clue: “Ex: Hans M.F. Schulman auction, January 26-27, 1971 “The Howard Gibbs Collection.” Luckily, the Newman Numismatic Portal has digitized mountains of numismatic history, and I was able to easily pull up the auction catalogue. Sure enough, there were a couple of unbroken trees and a few broken trees listed. I drooled and salivated over these tantalizing glimpses of cast money trees – and wondered where they might be now.





Well, fast forward to about a month ago. I noticed a listing on Heritage for one of my holy grails – an unbroken Moroccan cast tree. But there was something different about this one: this one was a 4 falus denomination! This wasn’t the more common 1 falus. I watched, I waited, I anxiously and eagerly counted down the days to the auction, knowing without a doubt that this piece would become mine! Finally, I won!


In the interest of finding out more about this coin, I did a bit more research. Heritage provided a brief pedigree: “Ex. Detroit Money Museum (Inventory no. 2-7-63) From the Charles J. Opitz Collection.” The Heritage listing also mentioned that this piece was pictured on page 230 of Charles Opitz’ book, “An Ethnographic Study of Traditional Money.” I bought the book, and while there is only the briefest mention of the Moroccan money tree, the book has been a fascinating journey through shells and beads and cloth and such – all the things people have used as money besides coins.


Since I was trying to find out everything I could about the piece, I decided to contact Mr. Opitz directly and ask him about it. He told me that it was originally in the collection of Nathan Shapero, who loaned (and then sold) his collection to the Detroit Money museum. The Detroit Money Museum opened in 1960 and housed an impressive display of primitive and traditional money, and told the story of the history of money. One of their most impressive pieces was a yap stone. Sometime in the early 1980’s, Shapero sold his collection to the Detroit Money Museum. Unfortunately, this arrangement wasn’t to last – in 1986, most of the museum was sold to a Detroit dealer. Mr. Opitz was fortunate enough to visit that dealer and purchase most of the traditional money – this piece included.


I decided to investigate a bit further, and see if I could locate any other 4 falus trees. I recalled the Gibbs sale of 1971, so I went back and checked that auction catalogue again. Sure enough, there it was: “Unbroken tree casting of 12 three falu coins dated 1289 AH. Extremely rare. Only in these three collections: (a) Chase Manhattan (b) Shapero Detroit (c) Gibbs. Note: “I have hunted for a complete tree (I had a broken one) for over 30 years. Now June 1964 I went to Marakesh and found it.”” (not sure why they called this a 3 falu coin – that denomination is quite uncommon)


Wow, what a fascinating piece of information! Only three known – and I apparently have just bought the Shapero-Detroit-Opitz specimen.


Congrats, you say. Show me the piece, you say. Ok, here it is! The first thing you notice is the nice, even color across the piece. The branches are solid, and there is no hint of corrosion anywhere on the piece. The branches come together in a solid bit at the top, which was clearly cut and ground where it was poured. In between each coin is a short gullet, with “perforations” near each coin to help break it off. I am extremely pleased to add this piece to my set.


So, questions? Comments? Do you have a broken or unbroken tree to share?

   

Exactly. You hit that nail squarely on the head. . 

What  I see in carefully reading  letters descriptions, etc. from the 1840-1870 (as far as I've gotten) is that only the people we recognize as big name collectors were older men. They had vast collections many of which were later sold at auction. But the ordinary to medium advanced collector was young - 20s - looking for coins from circulation and buying coins to fill holes in set of obsolete coinage and proof sets. Several thousand silver/minor sets were sold each year and they did not mostly go to Old Folks. The present top-heavy situation is more likely a result of post-WW II kids collecting coins, bubble gum cards, and rocks. Now they are old, and dying off.
As with the economy in general, it is the middle class with disposable income that drives forward. When that shrinks, everything else shrinks.

It may have gotten lost in the pixelated soup, but you gave me a great excuse to talk about what orichalcum actually is....and that makes me exceedingly happy!!! It's one of my favorite coinage alloys.  I'm such a nerd.

@Mohawk I guess something is lost in the pixelated soup. If you were to present the image to people at random, "golden-colored brass alloy," as used by the Roman Empire, is not likely to be the initial first impression you would get.  (On the other hand, I would be too embarrassed to admit I was totally unfamiliar with the term and had to look it up.) Very informative post! 😅

Hahaha.....I should have known Quintus!! Well, first off orichalcum is a form of brass, so it's definitely different than the 1860's Indian Cents.  There's only negligible nickel in it and the inclusion of the nickel was certainly not deliberate.  The Romans likely didn't even know it was in there if they even knew nickel existed.  As for the brass 1944 Lincoln, that's tougher to define as both are brass.  According to this article https://mmta.co.uk/2015/01/30/the-metal-from-atlantis/#:~:text=The composition of orichalcum is,of nickel%2C lead and iron.  Orichalcum ranged from 75-80% copper and 15-20% zinc with trace metals and, to be fair, I don't believe the Romans knew what zinc specifically was, either.  They likely just knew that if they combined calamine, charcoal and copper in a crucible, they'd get orichalcum.  As for the 1944 Brass Lincolns, the composition was definitely different, with 95% copper and 5% zinc, so a fair bit more copper and less zinc than orichalcum by far.  And the U.S. Mint definitely knew what zinc was and that they were using it to make brass.  From what I've seen, orichalcum seems much more yellow than either coin you mentioned and, this is just my personal opinion, I find the warm yellow of orichalcum much more appealing than either an C/N Indian Cent or a 1944 Brass Lincoln .  But, of course, I'm very biased here.
I have to watch you....you're going to keep me on my toes!  Which, I love, by the way!

You have appearance review checked, that is for coins that are already in NGC holders that you think are overgraded, you need to uncheck that box.
Also do not forget to select the return shipping method box #3
One last thing, I would suggest in the future that you not fill in your personal info before the screenshot, many people consider that unsafe.

If it were up to me, especially if I were really young, I'd just buy and hold small cap index ETFs in a traditional IRA. It's boring, it's simple, and it's a whole lot likelier to lead to early retirement than deciding between precious metals. Truth told, I see the precious metal market as a heavily shilled and probably artificially manipulated dodge designed to play on people's fear (and separate them from their money).

Thanks Mohawk! I think the verdict has been reached. I will keep the gold. I have some silver already (100 oz or so) but it's a mix of different coin types bought over time for fun... a couple silver dollars from every country/mint, etc. 
Thanks again!     

I'm with Jonathan....actual collector's coins are where it's at.  Bullion hoarding is most definitely not collecting and you could definitely make an argument that it's even a very poor investment tool.  Bullion is always a crapshoot.  Let me tell you about my favorite local coin shop.  They had a little bit of everything....lots of U.S. classic coinage, moderns, world stuff, some ancients and, of course, bullion.  It's near impossible to have a brick and mortar shop these days without getting into bullion.  My fiancée and I were regular customers for years.  Then, a few weeks ago, we went down to check things out and do some shopping. The owner was inside, packing everything up.  He told us that he was closing up shop because he couldn't handle bullion fluctuations any longer.  He'd buy a monster box of Silver Eagles, have to pay $5,000 over spot value and if silver went down, that $5,000 could just disappear.  And that did happen to him.  A few times.  So, yeah, bullion killed my favorite coin shop.  Since you asked for opinions, I'm going to be honest with you, share my opinion and say this.........stay away from bullion and get into actual coin collecting.
~Tom

C'mon Mo', no way I'm gonna let you slide on this one. "Great" Orichalcum? How does this differ from those Cu-Ni Indian Head cents from the 1860's or 1944 Lincoln Heads?  If this is the best you can do, I want my money back. 💰 🤔

I have to say, you just reminded this crusty, jaded Roman coin guy how beautiful even common date Wheat cents can be!!! Well done and thank you for that!!

I know that this has been cleaned at some point (as have many ancients  Most of the ones that still exist have been dug out of the ground, so they need it), but look at that great orichalcum color!

Semi-keys are targeted just as often as famous keys.  There's a bit of an advantage to the counterfeiter to target dates like an 1870 IHC because an 1870 is likely to be subjected to a lower degree of close scrutiny than an 1877 IHC or a 1909-S IHC.  Accordingly, a counterfeiter is more likely to be able to "pass" their 1870 than a more famous key date in the same series.  The counterfeiter is doing this to make money, and it's just as easy for them to crank out a few 1870's as it is a few 1877s.  If the 1870 is more likely to "pass" and result in a sale and a counterfeiter knew this, then that would be a good target for their efforts and likely an even better one than an 1877 or 1909-S.

With "CAC Service" they will come to your home, pickup your car and coins, have them thoroughly cleaned and inspected, change the oil and bodily fluids, and return it all in shiny new driveable condition. There is also the deluxe "CAC-Plus Service" where they include your family dog or cat.

Here’s where it gets stupid. Some people assume any coin without a sticker was refused one. NO!!!!!!!  Perhaps most of them have never been SEEN by John Albanese. I’ll tell you for certain that none that I have sent to NGC have ever been seen by John Albanese and mortality statistics would suggest he never will. 

I'm with the others.....definite machine doubling.