Conder101

With that much weight missing, and no visual evidence of etching from and acid, I would strongly suspect a missing clad layer.

It's a D&H 1b, listed as common.

I'm not sure but I believe one of the reasons the insurances companies got such a small award was because manyof the firms saying they paid claims on the wreck no longer had the policys/documantation. The policy's had been paid and they never expected the cargo would be recovered so they had disposed of the paperwork.

I think they probably did, because they did send out lists of what coins were available.

Nickel and copper are basically the same density so without it being thicker the weight for a coin made of nickel would be the same weight as a copper one. It doesn't appear to be thick like a FE cent, so I can't explain the weight unless there is a higher density material in the alloy.

I strongly suspect a fake.

And if they strike bullion issues at San Francisco those dies are made in Philadelphia as well. There is no difference between the bullion dies used at Philadelphia, Sn Francisco,or West Point.

In this case they have just placed a sticker on the coin.

Yes but putting them on display calls for creating new displays and they are a greater security risk and cost while on display,. Most museums have limited resources and would rather put them to use displaying items of broader appeal while keeping the very valuable coins locked away.

Yes, the DuPont coin has never resurfaced. There is still hope though. Several of the major rarities from the robbery have turned up over the years. Sure but color images in catalogs were very costly at the time. Even B&W images could be costly which is hy as you go further back in catalogs you see fewer and fewer images and then only of the most important pieces. Most of the B&W images would be halftones. Early plated catalogs would have single inlaid photo prints of important coins and mostly made from life size contact prints.

One of the nice things about his books is that all but the most recent are available for free download online. The first five can be found here http://www.lsccweb.org/BillBugertBooks.php Volume VI on the issues of the Philadelphia mint after 1852 isn't out yet. They really are a fantastic reference. Well if you are fixated on a particular series it give you an excuse to keep buying them. First you try and get all the date/mints, then you try to get all the varieties, and if you are looking at a coin and you have that date, and you have that variety, do you have that die stage? (John Wright expressed a similar thought "I have that date, and I have that variety, and I have that die stage.......But I don't have a GREEN one!" Any excuse is a good excuse.)

Don't put a lot of faith in label color, the colors weren't stable until their generation 3.1 The generation 3.0 is best known for the unstable color. Labels can be white, several shades of yellow, several of green and all the way through sky blue depending on whether the yellow or blue dye was breaking down, or both. At one time I had over a dozen different "colors" of labels for that generation holder.

Many museums don't display or only display a small part of their numismatic holdings. So there could be a good chance we wouldn't know about them.

There are plenty of videos on Youtube about how to recover gold from PC boards.

If I remember correctly they had a similar opinion back around the turn of the 20th century when they were of the opinion that any coins that did not conform to the specifications in the coinage act of 1873 were illegal and subject to government confiscation.

The early NGC slabs ("no line fatties") used to tone white silver. Crescent toning on the coins closest point to the label. Not quite. If a non-PCGS coin is submitted for crossover it has to be cracked out and there is no guarantee that it will cross at the same level. With a PCGS coin it will be examined in the holder and if it won't cross over then it will be returned in the same PCGS slab and you don't lose the PCGS grade.

What is interesting is it definitely isn't real, but the diameter seems right and the thickness to small, yet the weight is right. A little lead in the alloy?

Part of the problem is that the planchet manufacturers want to keep ALL of their clients happy, so when they get swamped and can't keep up with production they ration planchets to all of their clients. No one gets all they want, but no one gets shut out either.

Only from people who collect signatures or who HAVE to have every label variation. I collect coins, not signatures.

Unless there is a huge demand, or for some reason the West Point mint has to close (as they did briefly due to Covid) all the bullion coins are struck at West Point. If they do have to strike them at another mint then the strapping on the green minster boxes identify which mint they are from, and the boxes get shipped unopened to the TPG's and slabbed with a (S) or (P) on the label so they can be hyped as rare issues. (But if you were to ever be cracked out they would suddenly become just generic West Point coins, so the only value is in the label.)

To me the business strikes and the "burnished" coins have always looked the same.

I responded to the question on March 11.

There aren't that many places that produce the planchets, and they are making them for mints all over the world. They get overwhelmed by demand, and they may still be shorthanded due to covid.

Nice coin. Off-center not broadstruck. Personally I see no reason to send it in.

Sounds like a good idea. Can you put me in touch with James Ross Snowden?