FlyingAl

Merry Christmas all! I finally made a purchase today that completed a search that holds a special place in my heart - it was this search that brought me into classic US numismatics, and fueled my passion for hunting down coins that perhaps don't have much attention paid to them and researching those pieces.

1942-1936 proofs, particularly cameos, have held a special place in collecting for me. They’ve been my specialty for as long as I’ve been seriously collecting (about five years now), and I’ve rarely branched from them. When I do, it’s usually into the surrounding proofs realm where I still know what I’m doing. There’s so much to know about these coins and they finally seem to be getting a lot more attention recently. However, there’s a lot of exceptional proofs that go entirely unnoticed, and some truly rare proofs in this series go for an astonishingly low amount of money. The following coin is one such proof, and one that took me five years to hunt down. Here it is:

A PR64 1942 quarter. Pretty boring, huh? Nope! (Ok maybe ) Some of you already know why just with a quick glance. My pictures simply don't do it enough justice, the obverse is nearly fully frosted and the viewer's left wing of the eagle has decent contrast. There's an image of another 1942 lower down in the thread where I mention that coin is very similar to this coin, so take both images, combine them, and you'd have an idea of the coin in hand.

Cameo 1936-42 proofs are exceedingly scarce, with most current populations under 300 coins for any date/denomination combo. Most combos have under five known. Quite a few date/denomination pairs have no cameos known. Something sticks out quite quickly when looking at current populations of 1936-42 proofs in cameo - not a single Washington quarter has ever gained the designation. Not one. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Here’s the even bigger point - for those coins that don’t have any cameos known, you can usually find multiple near cameo examples that just missed the designation, and when standards change they probably will get the designation. Not for Washington quarters - except 1942. While there are really nice quarters out there with exceptional obverses or reverses only (1938), no other year shows contrast on both the obverse and reverse, at least from what I’ve seen.

Here’s why - when producing the dies for these coins, the mint had some trouble with polishing. The dies for the 1909-16 redesigns had a basined field - that is the fields of the dies were curved. This is why the mint elected to do matte proofs for the cents and nickels of 09-16, and sandblast and satin proof gold for those years. They simply couldn’t polish the dies without ruining them. By the time 1936 rolled around and the mint decided to give proofs another shot, this was mostly fixed and the die curvature was minimal, or at least to the point where they could polish dies without ruining them. However, the dies were still curved enough that when they were polished, the low point satin frost and detail created by the die production process was almost certainly going to be abraded away. The fields were the high points on the die, and the areas that were most similar in relief to the field were those most impacted.

For most coins, these areas were limited. Lincoln cents had the fewest low relief points, and therefore the most cameos 1936-42. Then came Jefferson nickels, Mercury dimes, and Walking Liberty halves. In last place is the Washington quarter. Almost half of the entire reverse is similar in relief to the field. The wings and tail feathers of the eagle were almost always abraded away on the initial polish, and upon repolish the situation only got worse. Simply finding a coin with full tail feathers on the reverse is really difficult. Finding one with any contrast at all on the reverse is a major accomplishment, especially on the wings.

As I mentioned before, there are Washingtons with nice contrast on one side - but it’s usually only that one side. There’s an exceptional 1938 owned by @NorCalJack that has a monster obverse, but the reverse simply isn’t comparable in terms of contrast. And that’s one of the finest contrasted 36-42 quarters out there! When I say these things just don’t really pop up ever, I mean it.

I’ve searched like a madman for a 1942 quarter with some contrast that can be called close to cameo. I’ve seen photos of exactly four, one being the present coin. Three come from the same die pair, the other from a different die pair. I had the opportunity to purchase two of these coins, one when I had just started specializing in these proofs five years ago. $100 was a lot to spend, and I passed. Luckily I saved the pictures of it. It was in a PCGS OGH 65 I think, it was a while ago this one came up for sale.
.


.
.
.
This coin is one of the three from the same die pair, and I’d say that it is from the later end of that die pair’s ability to produce coins with contrast. The haze on the left wing aids the contrast, but if it was removed the effect would be much less on the reverse. The thing to notice is the black mirrors - one rarely EVER sees these on proof quarters, and almost never on both sides. When coupled with any contrast at all the coin is just simply rare. Black mirrors aren’t actually “black”, but rather just how deeply mirrored silver appears to the eye. A regular 36-42 Proof 25c would show light grey mirrors, like this coin. 

.
.
The other two contrasted coins I've seen are very similar, both showing decent obverse contrast and weak reverse contrast. Here they are: 


.
.
And this NGC PF67 example owned by @cameonut2011. This coin appears very similar to my example, down to very slight details. They are hard to photograph! This is the finest contrasted example that I'm aware of.


.
.
Coin #3 (PCGS PR65 with the slab shot) is from a different die pair than the other three, and try as I might I can’t find another example. This one appears to be the best contrasted, but the images also appear to be accentuating the contrast. There are two instances in 1942 where proof die pairs struck only 8 and 30 coins (one surviving would make sense), but both of these instances wouldn’t likely produce a coin of that contrast caliber. In case you’re wondering how I’m telling die pairs apart - look at the eagle’s left (viewer’s right) wing. There are recut wing feathers, and the second recut wing feather is a different length between the dies.

That’s all I found (I could have missed a few or not have good enough pictures to determine for sure if I would call a proof a near cameo, but I'm almost certain there are under ten known currently). Here’s the big kicker - for those that I saw with prices, they went for the same or less than a proof without contrast. I imagine the big reason why is because they are relatively unknown - very few people have ever mentioned seeing one such coin and very very few actually seek them out/look for them. If more people knew of the rarity of these coins I expect they’d be worth multiples of what they currently go for.

They're not exceptional near cameos - they're actually easy to miss if you aren't looking for them. But if you try to find one you'll notice just how hard they are to find. Compared to every other cameo 1936-42 proof they'll be the least noticeable. Part of it is because they aren't really cameos, but the other part is they're just not as spectacular. But they are just as rare, if not more so.

So I spent years looking for one - I got close two times, but not close enough. When this little near gem popped up - I knew. The journey was over. I’d found one. And I couldn't be more happy with the coin!

Here’s my lesson from this to anyone who cares to hear it - no matter what plastic this coin was in, I was buying it. I didn’t care what the label said, what stickers were on it, or what on earth the TPG was because it wouldn't matter. Sometimes collecting is finding your path - and a lot of times you’ve got to make it yourself without any help. I got a R7-R7+ (from what I know) coin that many people wouldn’t pay a second thought to today, let alone know it’s an R7-R7+, and I got it for a very reasonable price. It’s all down to you sometimes to know what someone else doesn’t. That's what makes the hobby fun - there's something for everyone if we step back and look for it!

Merry Christmas! I hope you enjoyed my ramble!

On 12/23/2022 at 4:16 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Aren't they each common to modern bullion ?  Could I tell them apart ?

Here:

The difference should be obvious. 

On 12/21/2022 at 7:57 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

Greetings Al!

I know this aspect has been addressed before elsewhere, but would you mind specifying the tool used to effect "polishing"?  I assume a wire brush is out of the question, but what exactly are we talking about here, a camel's hair brush? 

The information out there is minimal. From what I can gather, it appears that regular circulation dies were taken after a quick deburring with a lap by the die sinker and given a polish with a very fine abrasive with another lap. This was done by taking the die and affixing it to a rotating spindle and attaching the lap to the non rotating spindle. The lap would be pressed into the die until contact was made and the die was rotated until the desired amount of polishing was done. This extra step of using a fine abrasive would produce a fine mirror surface, and though it is possible that some proof dies were polished by hand, but this would be extremely time consuming and therefore unlikely. 

@RWB, feel free to add more or correct me if I missed something here. I know there's some fine details I've left out, but I wanted to give just a general overview. 

I recently picked up this raw 1942 cent, and I was super pleased with it when I got it in hand. It has some very noticeable obverse and reverse contrast, likely enough to warrant a CAM designation. Coins like this don't pop up much, and they rarely appear raw. The left obverse hit is unfortunate, and will likely drop the grade a point or two., but it has some really nice original color that I'm a fan of. It's an overall pleasing coin!

CAM proofs like this one were struck from two new dies. Both dies must not have been polished to the point of removing the satin frost layer that is natural from die production. This was a delicate operation, and the die technicians often failed at it in the 36-42 era. There were multiple instances of brand new dies having to be condemned before they struck a single coin because they were polished way too much, degrading the detail to the point where the die was useless. 1942 was the best year as the techs got really good at polishing, but very few dual sided contrasted coins remain. 

The coin: 

A poster over at PCGS asked me if I could track down the striking date of a cameo 1940 proof nickel he had, I'm happy to say I could. Here are my findings:

Your coin was struck September 11th, 1940. There were three new obverse dies that were paired with new reverse dies (requirement for a CAM coin for the era) for the year with the Rev. of 40, at least two produced cameo coins. Your coin was struck from the die that did not have major recutting of the queue.

Your coin:

I wish to point out two areas of die markers here:

Here is a different coin from the same die pair (note the same markers) that was used for quite some time. It was then put back into service with the same obverse reverse die combo:

Die combo 73/45 was first used Sep. 11th, and it was the only die that was used in combo with a same obverse to gain noticeable die wear. Combo 72/42 (second new die pair) only struck 300 coins, and was never paired together again. Combo 436/46 (third new die pair) struck 320 coins and was never paired together again.

However, the Sep. 11th die pair (73/45) was used for 950 coins together. These dates were Sep. 11th (350 coins), Nov. 16th (500 coins), and Dec. 3rd (100 coins). During that time (Oct 24), only the obverse was paired with a different reverse die (#44) for 840 coins which explains why the obverse shows more die wear than the reverse.

I do not believe that 300 coins would show the wear we see on the obverse die. The die pair had to be the same over a period of time long enough to show visible die fatigue, and I believe upwards of 1190 coins would cause that. The September 11th die pair is the only logical explanation in my eyes.

I made this pretty cool (to me) discovery in a bit of research I was doing on the 1942 and 1942-P proof nickels. Using CoinFacts and Roger Burdette's die tables and book United States Proof Coins 1936-1942 for these two coins, I noticed a die variety that Roger pointed out carries on into the later half of 1942 proof nickel production and is used for CU-AG-MN coins.

A bit of background - 1942-P copper-silver manganese nickels were a major burden for the medal department. Only 47.6 percent of the coins struck by the dies ever made it past quality control. This is a major reduction from the 88% the CU-NI nickels had earlier in the year.The alloy of CU-NI-MN was brittle and prone to cracking. The high pressure strike of the medal press likely caused the alloy to crack more and caused more failed coins. Half the success usually meant extra dies. Dies were expensive, so if there were dies to be used, the mint would use them. The mint did just that in 1942 - it used Type One obverse dies to strike Type Two coins.

I started with what I knew. There was a proof Type One nickel obverse die with a die chip that was easily visible, circled here:

A Type Two example has the same die chip here:

I wanted to figure out what day the coins with the chip were struck on. I had little to go off of but this:

In October, the mint began striking the Type 2 nickels in proof. They used three old obverse dies from the Type One proofs, die numbers 122, 124, and 456. I'll break down what number of coins each die struck:

122- 6,385 CU-NI, 1,500 CU-AG-MN (First Used Oct 10 for silver alloy coins)
124- 5,190 CU-NI, 1,000 CU-AG-MN (First Used Oct 20 for silver alloy coins)
456- 3,300 CU-NI, 3,900 CU-AG-MN (First Used Oct 23 for silver alloy coins)

One of these dies had to be the one with the die chip. I compared how many coins of of each type one and type two proofs had the die crack. I came up with about 9 percent Type Two coins and roughly 28% Type One coins. By doing some math with the amount of coins struck with obverse dies and the percent we get:

T1 with chip - .28 * 25,895 total coins struck by an obverse die = 7250 coins with chip struck
T2 with chip - .093 * 19,550 total coins struck by an obverse die = 1818 coins with chip struck

Well, we now know a ballpark estimate of what we should be looking for. From this, we can rule out Die Number 456 as it doesn't even get close to out estimate. The other two dies are too close to call.

Now we get to the real detective work. Dies 122 and 124 are nearly identical. I believe I found examples of both dies in the Type One format, and the only difference is the die chip. They both seem to pop up at about the same rate and look very similar.

Here is where I'll throw in the comparison of Dies #122 and #124 (In my experience and opinion on #124 based on what I've seen - I could almost prove it but don't feel the need.) I will prove die #122 has the chip later on.

Die #122 (Obverse)

Die #124 (Obverse)

I couldn't match anything based on reverse die usage. Both obverse dies were paired with the same reverse dies (one exception, but I had no luck finding a coin from that exception) for the Type One format. I had to turn to the dies in the Type Two format. I knew that they were paired with the new reverse dies 387 and 388, respectively.

The 122/387 combo would prove to be the saving grace needed to identify the striking date. Both dies were condemned after one day of usage, so those two reverse dies are the only two that need to be focused on. Die 387 is noted later as condemned for being "Worn out", while die number 388 (paired with obverse 124) is condemned as "Cracked".

We immediately notice some lettering weakness on the die chip 1942 Type Two Proofs, shown here - this is suggestive of reverse die #387 and it will prove to be reverse die #387:

It's not bad, but remember - this die is brand new. Any weakness of this caliber on a brand new die is to be noted. We also know that at the time die #387 was condemned, it was paired with an obverse die that was also condemned for "Worn Out - Pig Tail." This "Pig Tail" refers to Jefferson's queue. The obverse it was paired with was used solely on CU-AG-MN coins for those wondering. I was able to find an example of that pairing (457 obverse/387 reverse pre condemnation):

You'll immediately notice the weakness is in the same areas circled above, but worse after multiple repolishes. We know definitively that the reverse die that the die chipped die (obverse) was paired with is number 387. That die is #122. Mystery solved!

To offer further proof, we know that reverse die #387 struck 5,300 coins (most of any reverse die for T2). By doing some math, I concluded that roughly 35% of the CoinFacts coins were struck by die #387. This comes out to roughly 7,000 or so coins, which corroborates what I was saying (known populations won't exactly mirror what the data should say, but it should still fit).

Secondly, if you think or scroll back to the picture I posted of die #124, you'll probably notice the similarities here to it, paired with a reverse die for a T2 nickel without any letter weakness:

I do believe the die was repolished before use as a T2 obverse, which accounts for slight detail change. However, we know that die #388 was condemned for cracking rather than weak lettering, so the sight of a coin with a strong reverse is further support. You can also see what appears to be a die chip in the upper left obverse field, as well as some seemingly minor micro-cracks in the upper reverse field. This would indicate the reason reverse die #388 was condemned - cracking.

With this information, if you have a die chipped 1942 Proof Type Two Nickel, you know it was struck on October 10th, 1942.