RWB

No errors. Merely common discoloration, use/abuse, etc. What convinced you these were "errors" of some sort - or of the specific kinds mentioned?

Thank you! It was fun to write because so much of it was entirely new to the hobby. I wrote with the intent this book should last at least a generation or two!

No "Special Mint Set" (SMS) coins were made in 1964. The coins falsely called "SMS" are merely early strikes off new dies. This situation happens hundreds of times every year and is entirely NORMAL. The proof are 1964 (and other date) pieces in the Smithsonian which are correctly identified. Whatever on-line "research" the OP has done is likely false -- lies by the ignorant and those pumping something for money.

The pictured item is a put-together phony. It has no value except a small laugh. I feel new posters should be given facts simply and directly. Subsequent actions are their own to make.

Common mistake. Sometimes the new coin is better sometimes worse. Go to a local coin club -- maybe you can trade with someone else.

Ordinary cent, possibly plated, then polished. No collector value.

Confiscation is not being paid fair value --- eminent domain is the same concept. Note also that every person or entity had access to the courts, and no court ruled in favor of a plaintiff, including the Supreme Court. Kindly stick with facts not inflammatory, and false, rhetoric.

As noted above, collectors and responses to their questions are far down the to-do list. The Mint's insularity also contributes to a "closed mind" situation where clear direct answers are often avoided in favor of obscure and confused assertions and claims of non-existent legal authority.

There was no confiscation. Hoarded gold coin and gold certificates were paid for in full. As technology changed we see changes in the content of documents and other records. Telegrams created duplicate follow-up letters to make the telegram official. Telephones eliminated a lot of small details that had once been in writing. Typewriters mad letter reading easier but altered the flow of business in an office. Carbon paper greatly increased the internal distribution of memos...and so forth. Today it requires extensive auditing trails to keep track of ordinary messages between employees.

Internal Treasury documents are business-oriented and very rarely touch on collectors or similar things. Documents were seldom separated by subject except in the 1915-34 period when different filing systems were used. None of the systems were actively maintained after a switch was made. Thus there were piles upon piles of papers which eventually got mixed up. When the WPA workers started organizing things they had limited guidance and only mixed things even more by creating unofficial categories such as "Franklin Peale Papers" or "Buffalo Nickels," etc. Added to this was a lack of understating of content by the workers, so the Buffalo Nickel microfilm is actually a mix of subjects. In short: most of what had been found was discovered by a page-by-page search, not by any topical heading.

Does that say "Slab" or "Blab?"

Please send me your filled slab boxes and 100-slab cases. Thank you for the kind offer!

Quality is, as expected, not comparable with the $35,000 75kg permanent professional archiving units. However, for ordinary research, and especially the kinds of Treasury and Mint documents commonly encountered, this will likely work very well. At less than $400 it seems like a good value. [I can pretend that NNP volunteers equipped with one of these could scan the San Francisco and New Orleans Mint documents much quicker than can now be attempted. Possibly the same for the greater mass of Philadelphia and College Park records, too. Then there are university, LoC, and private library materials.]

Yes, it is a fixed focus system, which made me very skeptical. However, after shooting nearly 3,000 images in all sizes at NARA, I find very little difference between this device and my normal DSLR quality. The greatest difference is in shooting small items such as note paper and post cards. A DLSR can get closer and focus so that the original nearly fills the frame. This equipment cannot do that, so small documents are not as sharp as with a camera. (I presume the mfgr is using a modified sub-hyperfocal point so that the sharpest range is about 30 to 50cm, rather than the usual 50cm to infinity.) It does not have a red centering line or scan bar -- that's on the laptop screen. Here's a somewhat dated-looking illustration. It looks a lot like a bunch of other similar products. (It does not emit blue light.) Frankly, it's the best of about a dozen I've personally tested, and one of only three that made it to real-world tests on my own time. My only connection is that it seems to work OK.

Typical of Mark's consistent quality and understanding of coin photography.

The mast height adjustment has click-stops for A4, A3 and A2.

A2 420 x 594 mm 16.5 x 23.4 inches A3 297 x 420 mm 11.7 x 16.5 inches A4 210 x 297 mm 8.3 x 11.7 inches

Many of these things are pewter, nickel-silver, copper-nickel, or tin alloys. Yours resembles copper-nickel-- similar composition to a 5-cent coin.

For those interested, the test equipment will scan pages, either flat or bound in volumes up to 3-inches (75 mm) thick. It will adjust page geometry and correct for book-page curvature, adjust exposure and color balance, automatically crop and rotate images, and split 2-up images into two facing pages (like the above sample). It will also remove fingers holding down page margins, but this is not entirely consistent - and likely due to user unfamiliarity. Output data is ready for export, minor editing and distribution as JPEG or PDF. High-quality PDF files are about 2 gig in size for 24-bit color; grayscale would be proportionally smaller files, as would reduced-size PDF. The "2 kg" weight mentioned above is correct. This includes base, mast and camera/scanner arm and even the weight of the black flexible base mat. It fits into a box about 4x4x20-inches when folded for travel. It has 4 built-in LED lights with adjustable intensity. (These are directly over the documents and will cause reflections off originals with glossy pages or packaged in plastic sleeves.) The ability to cover a full A2-size area simply by raising the mast is a great advantage. This allowed me to scan facing pages of large manuscript journals, which immediately cut imaging time by half.

The following documents from NARA, College Park, Md. have been uploaded to NNP and are available for free access. These are the product of an experimental A2-size scanner that weighs less than 2kg. There are a few obvious glitches, but everything is readable. Actual images are much sharper than posted samples. Shadow was caused by overhead lights --- RG104 Entry 235 Letters Sent by HQ. Volume 41, 42, 43, and 44. These cover December 31, 1885 through December 22, 1886, and include recipient index for each volume. Sample facing pages from bound volume --- RG104 Entry 229 Letters Received by HQ. Boxes 125, 126 and 127 (partial). These are all October/November 1900. Sample single page report --- Users can also check for related documents in Entry 1 General Correspondence.

Considerable wobble during the strike. Mechanical doubling. Find a copy of From Mine to Mint -- it will tell you how these things happen.

The test of a dealer is an offer of money. They will say anything and admire anything until challenged to make an offer consistent with the coins they are selling.

...look at FlyingAl's post "NEWP- 1942 Type 2 5c PR65, and a Major Milestone!" On the other side of the railroad tracks....

MS-66, retoned. Neither coin in the original post is "MS-68"

Read the law on counterfeit coins. There no distinction of the kind you mention. As Josep Stalin and a fool named Trump said: "The perpetrators and buyers should be given a trail, convicted and tossed in jail."