Your example was mounted at some point and you can still see the remaining solder on the uniface side. Since this one is also uniface, I suspect that is was used as a game counter or some other novelty purpose and not as a counterfeit coin, it is just too much of a coincidence that both of them are completely missing what would be the obverse. 
Posted 02/20/2013 5:34 pm
First Thank you for your reply! I have had the most difficult time in identifying this coins pedigree (which is something I really enjoy doing but often impossible in numismatics) The MS I use is in an Organic Chem lab where I did my grad studies and unfortunately I don't have access to an XRF although I think one of the gold/jewelry shops around here does so I'll retest - the grad assistant who manages the lab told me today upon my asking that the students were practicing (electro) gold plating as the end product of their experiment. This would explain why I found HCL and HNO3 bottles improperly left out :) so with that said I prepared the tiny little sample on the same surfaces they were using so long story short I could have easily ionized a GP remnant since they were using the machine - just weird that I came up with the percentages I did - I looked at the print out and recalculated and they are correct - but I think the sample was tainted as you mentioned.
With that all said and done, I'll figure out the proper metal content Friday if they let me use the XRF but I am interested that this is the 2nd one to turn up. You are correct in that is was clearly soldered to something - maybe as a necklace or mounted, however I just don't know where else to go....Do you happen to have pictures of the first example? I'm curious to see if they are identical. Also I am trying to nail down a time period as this would make it easier to search - in your opinion do you think this would be of a similar time period as the classic head quarter dollar issues? Maybe a token of the era used for some other purpose? I think I am just hoping that this is a cast-off that gobrecht used when making all the changes to the quarter eagle during that time to combat fraud :) Anything else you have would be great and thank you.
With that all said and done, I'll figure out the proper metal content Friday if they let me use the XRF but I am interested that this is the 2nd one to turn up. You are correct in that is was clearly soldered to something - maybe as a necklace or mounted, however I just don't know where else to go....Do you happen to have pictures of the first example? I'm curious to see if they are identical. Also I am trying to nail down a time period as this would make it easier to search - in your opinion do you think this would be of a similar time period as the classic head quarter dollar issues? Maybe a token of the era used for some other purpose? I think I am just hoping that this is a cast-off that gobrecht used when making all the changes to the quarter eagle during that time to combat fraud :) Anything else you have would be great and thank you.
