RWB

1835 - 1869 100 Mon (Tempo Tsuho) Japanese Shogunate period token. Common good-luck charm or temple offering In Japan. Brass or copper. Lower photo is upside down.

These can also be bought a a local Catholic Book Store where they are kept next to the boxes of communion sliders, and chlorinated "holly water" bottles. (Hint: The BBQ chicken and pork sliders are especially good, although small. Avoid the vegetarian "beef" -- takes like road-kill ermine with McD's imitation catsup.)

How about getting back to book covers.....The poor dead horse has been ground up, blended, and served medium-rare burgers no one really knows what's between the buns.

Also --- those who use a high-pressure staple gun for their 2x2s might want to reconsider.

1904 proof set mintage was 1,355. The "10,000" mentioned above were uncirculated sets of which only about 1/3 were sold (typical of Faran Zerbe's inert salesmanship).

Current technology is very good at flattening book pages. The mathematics is straight forward but not necessarily intuitive - the best has come from China. Software is much weaker when dealing with single pages that are damaged or have irregular surfaces from water exposure. Here, we get what is just a straight-on page image. The same applies to pages that are curved from being folded for 100 years. (All box material from the Mint Bureau has been folded like a tri-fold brochure. The "outside" 1/3rd has an abstract of contents, and the page has to be carefully unfolded - without creasing - to scan. It is common to have to put small weights at top and bottom to be able to scan the content so it is readable.) Clear overlay pates are available at NARA, but the overhead fluorescent lights are reflected off the plate and ruin images. There's no place to get away from these lights. The software handles auto cropping and background dropout, auto exposure, color correction and contrast adjustment (to help make light text visible). I might make additional adjustments on very faint text during clean up, but that's a little unusual. Out of the approx 500+ pages in a typical file box, about 300 images are made of "useful" material. This makes a highest quality JPG file of about 1.1 gig for a box. After I return home, this is transferred to my desktop PC, converted to TIFF (for stability) and processed. Later, I will go through the files and extract documents of individual interest - which takes at least 1 day -- often longer. I also OCR as much of the PDF files as possible, but the accuracy rate is only about 97.5%. Below is a typical 2-page letter assembled as a composite for illustration purposes. The fold lines are clearly visible. Edges were automatically filled to diminish curvature. There is a slight mismatch between lines of text and page edges. This can be from the typed original not being square with the paper, or from page distortion from incomplete unfolding. (NARA rules are very strict about handling documents.) The letter is about a request for 10,000 Philippine proof sets intended for sale at the St. Louis Expo.

"Clean up" question reply: With new equipment and software purchased last fall, "clean up" is much simpler than in the past. Imaging functions are largely automated, but results still have to be reviewed for accuracy. This involves checking for any duplicate images (sometimes intentional, sometimes accidental), making sure all are rotated correctly (crossing grid lines can confuse orientation subroutines), verifying auto edge fill, reviewing auto geometry correction of warped originals, and other small defects that might reduce OCR accuracy or confuse users. Additionally, images are converted to PDF and headers showing file location are added. Lastly, all Cashier's Daily Statements are copied and saved in a separate folder with date and mint for each. These are also converted to PDF. (Individual Cashier's statement files are named so that users can combine files from several months into one large chronological sequence, if desired.) The completed box files are stored in my database. A PDF of the box contents in file order and a separate PDF of the dated Cashier's statements are uploaded to NNP for posting to their free access system.

In a Ulhorn-type toggle press, the upper die is less firmly held in place. The die is inserted into a chuck, and this goes at the end of a stake whose distance is adjustable with a wedge and locking bolt. (This is how pressure was adjusted.) The lower die simply sat into a non-adjustable chuck. [All these chucks were checked on Groundhog Day each year by woodchucks who checked chucks and chucked bad chucks into the woods.]

The 1904 recoinage is, I think, confined to Spanish silver. But, as we gradually work into 1905 and later years, I'm sure more info will turn up. (FYI - it takes about 1 work day to scan and clean-up images from one box, IF we skip all the small assay office files and personnel reports (except defalcation, etc. It can easily cost several hundred dollars per box to do this.)

....but what if it's the obverse that is rotated? Hmmmm...?

NGC should know what they meant.

It was also valued at 50-cents, which created a problem when compared to a standard silver dollar. By buying 1-peso Philippine coins, a merchant would get twice the silver for a dollar. PS: There's a lot of detailed info on the 1904 Philippine coins in NARA RG104 E-229 Boxes 207-224. Available for free access at https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/archivedetail/527901

The "unanswered question" (per Charles Ives).... Anytime more than one denomination was in simultaneous production there was a chance a blank or planchet might get stuck in equipment, or get picked off the floor and tossed into the wrong bin. The Philippines used coinage issued by Spain which was replaced with US-struck Philippine coins (much like the OP's photos). Alaska was too sparsely populated for its own coins and had never been an independent state like Hawa'ii. (They'd contracted coinage from US Mints. After takeover by the US as much of this old coinage was recycled into ordinary bullion.) The main currency were US gold and paper, plus barter goods.

Well, your ARE a retired no-net high trapeze artist ... SO "suspension" might have more visceral meanings than for most of us horse theives.

[That's where they kept the lawyers....]

Which was obviously incorrect. Size and locations of the marks suggest MS-65 - but no better. The original owner might have thought it a "gift grade" or just not seen the marks. Having them reslab the bullion piece just eats up more money for no return.

US Mint correspondence with headquarters in Washington DC for 1904 will be available on NNP later this week. This includes the following file boxes in Entry 229: E-229 Box 207 Dec 1903- Jan 1904 E-229 Box 208 E-229 Box 209 E-229 Box 210 E-229 Box 211 E-229 Box 212 E-229 Box 213 E-229 Box 214 E-229 Box 215 E-229 Box 216 E-229 Box 217 E-229 Box 218 E-229 Box 219 E-229 Box 220 E-229 Box 221 E-229 Box 222 E-229 Box 223 E-229 Box 224 Dec 1904-Jan 12, 1905 Included are all the Cashier's Daily Statements for the coinage mints plus the NY Assay Office. Occasional items from small assay offices is also included but their routine reports were not scanned. Also included are letters regarding coinage, dies, Special Assay coins, and considerable information about foreign coinage including Venezuela, Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador, Philippines and lots of info or all sorts of subjects. Also scanned was part of the info on the Denver Mint and display of its equipment at the St. Louis World's Fair. There's an interesting exchange of information about how to pay Night Watchmen for Sunday work; and another between Charles Barber and Frank Leach at the SF Mint about poor die quality and the effects of die basining and planchet upset angles. There are more than 5,500 pages. NNP is entirely free to use. No sign-in or membership. Thank Eric P. Newman for sponsoring this resource.

Damage.

Low contrast enhancement tip. Begin by increasing the density of mid-tones until just before you start to pickup noise from the paper's surface. Then begin tweaking (NOT "twerking") shadow density and overall contrast. Take your time and always work on a copy -- never you original image.

...or all of the above depending on your personal interests.

That's all they should do at this point. You bought and accepted the coin without looking at it carefully - you looked at a paper label. You and all previous owners made that same fundamental error. ANA has a good summer class in examining and grading coins. Consider it.

1909 Lincoln cents were saved in large quantities in August-Sept 1909. They continue to show up in older bags of wheat-back cents.

RE: "1955 D 1C Mint Mark crooked question." Your question seems straight and not the least bit crooked. The mintmark is tilted slightly and damaged after manufacture, but nothing unusual or of any special value. The coin is worth a couple of cents in copper.

Restrikes of US circulating or commemorative coins are extremely unusual.

Yes, that too.