Indian Head Cent Mule

[Jedinite]

A friend of mine recently showed me his Indian Cent that appears to have been struck by two reverse dies...a mule. I am an experienced collector, but my knowledge of errors, and Indians, is limited.

 

Thinking about sending this in for certification and grading for him. It is well-circulated, but solid.

 

Wondered if anyone has experience with one of these? Or if it is, possibly, a counterfeit? I see online that an obverse mule Indian brought big bucks 15 years ago. Would love to give him great news.

[planman2014]

I will be blunt........the odds of this being genuine are about 0.00001%.

 

It is VERY common for people to create this 'magician' coins and sell them in novelty and/or magic shops. You can find them in tourist type stores to this day.

 

 

Can you possible post pictures of this coin? We need to see all THREE dimensions of the coin. Yes, THREE dimensions means the thin edge of the coin.

 

It is very difficult to get quality pictures of a coin so you might have trouble doing this.

 

 

[Jedinite]

I am well aware of counterfeits and novelties. I only briefly examined it, but both reverses looked like genuine coins with normal circulation.

 

I don't know where or how he acquired it. I will have him bring it by again. I doubt if I can get quality pictures of the edge, though. I may just need to examine it closer to see if I can pick something up.

 

Have you seen this particular fake before? If so, what are the telltale signs, other that a seam or some obvious red flag? Is it common to cut these and splice?

[physics-fan3.14]

A well made magicians coin can be very convincing. Look for a seam around the edge.

 

Other methods are to lathe out the center of one side up to the rims (but leave the rims in tact), and plane down the reverse of the other one, such that one side fits into the other. On this type, the seem will be on one side just inside the rim. This is more common with a double denomination coin, where they are different sizes.

[CaptHenway]

Check the "ring" when you drop it on a tabletop compared to the ring of a normal coin.

[RWB]

How can you know it's an Indian Head cent, if it has two reverses?

[Jedinite]

As far as my assumption of two Indian Cent reverses.....is there another copper coin, the same size, with the same reverse design? Not that I know of.....

[DaveG]

As CaptHenway, check the "ring" of the coin when it's struck. You could put the coin on the end of your finger and strike the edge with the side of a wooden pencil.

 

If the coin "thunks" instead of "ringing", then you have a Magician's Coin manufactured from two genuine coins.

 

A well-made Magician's Coin is hard to detect, but look for a seam inside one of the rims.

 

Since the "coin" is well-circulated, then I suspect it was made in the 20th century, using sophisticated machine tools.

[Conder101]

Check the weight as well.

[RWB]

...probably a modern concoction, but there are various official "experimental pieces" made from similar reverse dies.

[WoodenJefferson]

There exists a 2 headed 1859 IHC (pattern coin) but never as of yet know of a 2 tailed example.

 

Say, isn't the definition of a 'mule' 2 different denominations or series on the same planchet?

[RWB]

Yep...more of a donkey? Hybrid mule? Maybe it's Donald Trump?

 

The 1859 2-head piece is legitimate and there is contemporary documentation explaining how it occurred.

[Jedinite]

My friend brought the "coin" back for further examination. He could not remember where or how he acquired it.

 

With aid of a 16X loupe, I was able to discern a very light seam in portions of the edge. Also, it weighed just a little lighter than a standard Indian Head.

 

So, the report back is that it appears to be a very well made "Magician" coin or other novelty piece. We can all speculate on whether it would be a mule, a person_too_unaware_of_social_graces, an "obversion" or whatever, if it were otherwise legitimate, I suppose.....

 

Thanks for the input.

[Jedinite]

OK....when I typed the word j-a-c-k-a-s-s in previous message, it spitted out "person_too_unaware_of_social_graces" in its place.

Ruined my joke.

[RWB]

Ahhh...someone sucked The Force right out of it....!

[Jedinite]

"Always pass on what you have learned." Yoda

[cpm9ball]

OK....when I typed the word j-a-c-k-a-s-s in previous message, it spitted out "person_too_unaware_of_social_graces" in its place.

Ruined my joke.

 

NGC employs a censorship program that replaces offensive words with others. There are ways to avoid censorship. For example, jackarse or could be used.

 

I started using bidiot for id-e-ut (phonetic) because insufficiently_thoughtful_person was considered offensive.

 

Chris