RWB

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."

Some years ago, at the Sleepy Hollow Coin Show in Tarrytown, New York a Headless Hessian wandered about asking for a dealer named "Ichabod," who was not to be found. When the show opened the next morning, all the gold was missing from every showcase,and the Hessian was not to be found.

Badly eroded dies...

Certain alloys inhibit tarnishing, and corrosion so having 75% copper is irrelevant.

Counterfeits of other Kennedy halves have been fabricated in Colorado. Maybe this is just another fake....? Or maybe the OP is.... So hard to tell.

? Merely an attempt to make the OP's presentation a little more presentable -- presentably speaking, that is.

Here's a "better" version of your 1896 dollar, followed by an authentic UNC 1896 from the NGC database.

The presumed scam is: Crook enters small store and selects items totaling less than 5-cents. He/she fishes in pocket/purse and pulls out a plated nickel, placing it on the counter. Crook waits for merchant to offer $4.95 change. If only correct change offered, crook accepts 1 or 2-cents. In both cases the crook does not reveal anything about the plated nickel. If challenged by merchant, crook retrieves plated nickel, apologizes profusely for their error. Merchants will likely pass information to others on the block and local police officer. Small town and urban neighborhood merchants were quick to distribute information on fakes and scams. Ethnic neighborhoods were particularly close knit about "outsiders" offering deals. As with any similar coin transaction, the last one accepting the coin is stuck with it, if their bank rejects it.

Sounds as if the only "correct" answer is by the possessor of the only "correct" and secure methodology. A competent density test will quickly determine if the coin is a silver alloy of CuNi clad copper. But --- who can do that "correctly" and be trusted by the possessor. Too many self-approving constraints for reasonable work.

Gold plated 1883 Liberty nickels contemporary to that year are extremely difficult to authenticate. I've never seen a complete description of one in official or high-quality publications of the time. Further, many different people made these and thus the workmanship, especially on reeding, would vary. The base coin is expected to be Unc or very close to it, with thickness and uniformity of plating varying. Reeding would have been done before plating. Altered coin should have nearly original appearance sufficient to fool casual observation. It is unlikely that many nickels with drilled-out and lead-filled interiors were made due to the short time these could have circulated before wide publicity of gold plating. (See my book Fads, Fakes and Foibles for the story of this design and its rationale.) Here is a short newspaper article about gold plated nickels. Order for change of design: March 16, 1883 Sir, I have received your letter of the 14th inst., submitting for approval a change in the arrangement of the inscriptions upon the reverse of the five cent nickel coin as follows: The legend “E Pluribus Unum” to be taken from below the wreath, and placed above the same, and the word “cents” to be inserted below the wreath. You are hereby authorized to make this change and to commence the coinage and issue of the pieces as soon as practicable. Very respectfully, Horatio C. Burchard, Director

There was a persistent fantasy, fueled by irresponsible newspaper filler, that FE cents contained gold. Another version had gold in large coppers. This is in a similar "bin of ignorance" as the Sack "golden dollars" containing gold.