coinsandmedals

19 minutes ago, Mohawk said:

Looking good, Don!! Those are some very nice new pickups!  I especially love the Victoria pieces.....as you know, I have a fondness for empresses   Thanks for sharing those!

~Tom

Thanks, Tom! I am aware of your fondness and I can relate. I have been meaning to go explore the Ancients thread to see your new purchases. I can only imagine you have added some spectacular examples. 

Hmmm..I will keep with the same ruler. This is one of my more recent purchases. 

On 5/10/2019 at 6:12 AM, Mk123 said:

not bad at all, you did great! Keep it up!

Thanks, MK123! 

UPDATE: The 1793 Bermuda Penny (line item 5) just came back from NCS and NGC with a grade of XF details "Environmental Damage". I suppose once they removed whatever was on the surface it revealed some underlying environmental damage. This is not the result I wanted, but I will check it out when I have it in hand and use it as a learning experience. I do have notes that the fields were discolored so I can not say I am completely surprised. 

Is this something that NGC can check in on for me @LISA B? I can PM you more information if that would be helpful. Thanks in advance. 

I agree. That coin has severe PMD. 

35 minutes ago, Just Bob said:

Good luck 

Thanks Bob! 

That seems like the only reasonable explanation. I’ll have to contact NGC and go from there. 

It appears there are multiple scratches on both the obverse (behind Liberty’s rear and under “trust”) and reverse (above the second “L” of “dollar”). If they are on the coin and not the holder, I sincerely doubt the coin would grade anywhere near a 69. That is not to say you couldn’t or shouldn’t grade it. Finically speaking it would be a waste of money. From a sentimental standpoint, it’s not a bad idea if it means enough to you but be aware that you will likely lose money if you ever decided to sell it. 

That is most definitely not a double die. Not even close. Also, if you’re going to seek advice it would serve you well not to be belligerent to people who are trying to help. If you have patience and approach things in an unbiased way you’ll find that people like Mohawk can be a very valuable resource for things like this. 

1 hour ago, Mohawk said:

Hmmm......maybe I need to start looking for some reverse proof Faustina the Younger coins, Don.  After all, they've apparently been made for thousands of years........

Haha you mean don’t already have a few of them put away Tom? I’m sure your huckleberry friend would sell you one from his extensive collection of ultra rare coins. 

Glad to hear that gtw-123! The excerpt you posted from heritage is also a good piece of info, but I figured it wouldn’t make much sense to post that without first walking everyone through the different varieties. 

I assume they would, but I wonder why it ever made it into a “plated” holder to begin with. I may just have to send them an email with the details above and see what they say. I will be sure to update the list with their reply.

The Krause catalog on our host’s website you linked to is an atrocious mess when it comes to this series. The lack of established selling prices yields the clumped categories listed. You are absolutely correct though, they list two gilt categories and do not have a picture for either. 

3 hours ago, Conder101 said:

Definitely looks like a Peck 1073 that has had the gilt worn off.  Not the regular issue.

Thank you for the reply! It’s nice to know one of the more knowledgeable people agrees with me. Any idea how NGC would handle this if I were to resubmit it? 

It seems like you have a good eye and I always enjoy looking at nice coins. I really like the 45 S! 

Looks like a beauty! I am jealous of those photography skills! Will you consider posting a picture of your 66 for comparison? 

The file size was too large to attach all of the pictures. 

Here is a certified example of Peck-1073

Here are the images of the coin in question. Please note the holder is very scratched up and not all of the marks on the coin. 

In one of my late night strolls through eBay I came across a coin in an NCS holder marked as “EF Details Plated”. Normally I would not think twice about it and go on, but this was a somewhat unusual case. The coin was a 1797 SoHo issue twopence. For those of you who are not familiar with this coin, it is a fairly large and heavy copper piece.  It would make no sense for someone to plate this in hopes of passing it off as a gold coin to an unsuspecting merchant; however, I realize that there are a host of other reasons why some might want to plate a coin. Nonetheless, I decided to check it out.

I knew from prior experience that there are really only 17 (18-19 depending on how you view it) varieties of the 1797 twopence pieces. Of which, only 1 is a currency strike (Peck-1077). The others are either proofs or restrikes according to Peck. The quickest way to tell the proofs apart is to look at the reverse. Are there two sets of waves or three? If there are three sets of wave crests than you can focus your attention on a smaller subset of the known varieties (Peck-1067-1076; 1078-1079). Peck 1067-1076 used the same obverse and reverse dies; however, were struck at different times. Peck 1067-1069 can be distinguished from Peck 1070-1076 by the presence of several long and protruding die cracks along the rims of the obverse and reverse that are not as apparent or completely absent on Peck-1067-1069. To this extent, the die cracks along the broad rim of the coin tell a very important story. Likewise, one can distinguish between 1067-1076 and 1078-1079 by the presence of a prominent die crack protruding from the hair curl above the right shoulder and extending to the rim below the bust. The absence of this prominent die crack would point one in the direction of 1067-1076.  The coin in question does not have the prominent die crack found on Peck-1078-1079, nor are the stops drilled out which lead me to focus on Peck-1067-1076. General details for these varieties as follows (pictures are included when I was able to find an attributed example online):

Peck-1067 Gilt (die cracks rule this out)

Peck-1068 Bronzed (die cracks rule this out)

Peck-1069 Copper (die cracks rule this out)

Peck-1070 Gold (obviously not this one)

Peck-1071 Silver (obviously not this one)

Peck-1072 Silver- Thin 3-3.5 mm flan (obviously not this one)

Peck-1073 Gilt

Peck-1074 Gilt- Thin 3-3.5 mm flan (thickness is closer to 5mm and not 3-3.5mm)

Peck-1075 Bronzed- not to be confused with a proof coin struck on a bronze planchet

Peck-1076 Bronzed- Thin 3-3.5 mm flan (thickness is closer to 5mm and not 3-3.5mm)

Peck-1076A Copper- Thin 3-3.5 mm flan (thickness is closer to 5mm and not 3-3.5mm)

I was able to find pictures of Peck-1067-1069 which all show the very weak to non-existent die cracks that I discussed above. The coin in question has very prominent die cracks and as such this leads me to believe it cannot be Peck-1067-1069. This really leaves us with Peck-1073-1076. I was able to locate a picture of 1073 but I could not find one for 1074-1076. Note the prominence of the die crack on both the obverse and reverse. They mirror that of the coin in question.

There are numerous other differences between the earlier and later striking of these dies but they cannot be easily detected by pictures which is why I have decided to focus on the die cracks. This leaves us to ponder the difference between the thin and normal thickness and the differences between a bronzed coin and gilt coin. This coin is in an NCS slab so getting a hard set measure of the thickness is impossible; however, as best as I can tell it is much closer to the standard 5 mm than the 3-3.5 mm thickness of the thin pieces. As such, I ruled out a few other possibilities. By deduction, this leaves us with Peck-1073 and Peck-1075. It is possible that someone could have decided to plate a bronzed proof so I do not have a foolproof way to eliminate this possibility: however, this coin lacks the fine-grained texture one would expect to see on a bronzed proof piece. It remains possible that the plating process removed this, but it seems unlikely. This leads me to conclude that this coin is probably Peck-1073 and in fact, should be a gilt proof which makes the “Plated” attribute all the more confusing.

I know I did not do the best job explaining my thought process, which may have been hard to follow. I apologize for that. If you are still following along, I would love to know what your general thoughts are. Do you agree with my conclusion? Do you think it could be something else? Can you think of any other things I should examine? Also, how do you think NGC would handle this if I were to send it in?

1 hour ago, Travis Hale said:

This one was online, but mine are the same... 

 

 

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15 hours ago, Travis Hale said:

I have reverse proof coins Benjamin half dollars & they were considering doing more in 1940’s. 

You need to go back and look at the difference between proof and reverse proof. Like many other things, you are completely wrong. It appears all of your "research" is doing you absolutely no good. Ignorance is putting it lightly and in politically correct terms.

Hello everyone, I am in the process of raising funds for my next NGC submission and I am doing so by selling off some certain coins that no longer meet my collecting goals. I have 25 different world coin listings on eBay. Please take a look. If you see anything you are interested in please PM me or comment below. I am very open to offers and the prices reflect some wiggle room. If the link does not work for you please let me know. 

Click here to view the coins I have listed on eBay  

Beautiful coins everyone! As most you can probably tell by now, I primarily collect British and Irish coins. 

1 hour ago, Travis Hale said:

Reverse proof...

Alright everyone, the gig is up. He knows he found the only “reverse proof 1881 O Morgan” in existence. Congratulations Travis. I hope you enjoy your “unique” coin. I wonder why the mint waited until 2006 to release another reverse proof after they made this one in 1881.  

This has to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever read on these boards. 

You nailed it bigmarty58! To follow up with the same country. This is one of my newer purchases. It’s 1641-43 Great Britain Halfcrown S-2779 in a PCGS VF-30 holder. 

That is a very impressive and beautiful coin Star City Homer! It makes me miss my Japanese copper collection. From what I remember that series can be difficult to track down with decent eye appeal. 

To add to the thread I have included a picture of my 1806 proof restrike halfpenny. This was my first purchase from Heritage not too long ago. 

In an effort to keep this going...here is another one from my recent submission. It came back in a fresh NGC MS-61 holder (updated pictures to follow soon).