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jdsstrat's Last 20 Posts
| Need Help With A 1714 Queen Anne Farthing
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jdsstrat
Valued Member
United States
148 Posts |
 Posted 04/18/2025 11:24 pm
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Recently I posted about Queen Anne Farthings. I had been doing some reading about them but still had unanswered questions. Particularly this: everyone seems to agree that the farthings released for circulation were made from copper and yet the two people who have dived deeper into these coins than most beg to differ. Or so it seems. For example, C. Wilson Peck writes that others were released (perhaps those that failed Sir Isaac Newton's purity test?). And then there was Colin Cooke, who had a collection that includes Queen Anne farthings that had cracked when struck during testing and others made of tin and lead. So what gives? My farthing below is from dies 2 and E. It is on a small, thick (i.e., about 2 mm) flan, with a diameter of about 22 mm and a weight of about 5.07g. The edge is not only cracked, as you can see, but it is plain, which to most people who know about these farthings would suggest that this is another copper farthing. But it's not copper (and I asked two people at a recent coin show near me who concurred). I'm not sure what it is, though: it's too heavy for tin, too light for silver. And I wouldn't think it was lead for the same reason, although it looks to me like lead. That said, C. Wilson Peck also wrote that there were "rather deceptive small flan silver casts" out there but I can find no evidence of a seam on this one. And then there's the weight. This farthing is clearly a circulated example, but it's more its composition that I am wondering about than its grade. What do you all think?
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| | Forum: United Kingdom (Great Britain) Coins |
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| Too Good To Be True Columbia Farthing?
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jdsstrat
Valued Member
United States
148 Posts |
Posted 04/17/2025 9:34 pm
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Apparently there is some question about the origins of these tokens. Canada or the UK? 1820-30? I found this one in an old collection and wondered if it was authentic or not. It would appear to be from dies K and 10. The diameter and weight are correct enough, too, at 21mm and 2.48g, but boy does it gleam. Thoughts?
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| | Forum: Canadian Coins and Colonial Tokens |
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| Two 1955 Roosevelt Dimes Two Errors ?
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jdsstrat
Valued Member
United States
148 Posts |
Posted 04/16/2025 11:07 pm
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I found these two dimes going through a roll of 1955 Roosevelts. Is that edge break PMD or courtesy of the Denver mint? And that loop at the end of the oak branch on the other dime... how to explain that? Has anyone ever seen an "error" like that on a coin like this before?
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| | Forum: US Modern Variety and Error Coins |
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| Five Japanese Yen With A Counterpunch
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jdsstrat
Valued Member
United States
148 Posts |
Posted 04/14/2025 10:25 pm
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I was about to pass this and a whole lot of others like it over until I noticed the counterpunch. It is from 1951 so it is still the time of the Post WWII American Occupation of Japan. Could that have something to do with it?
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| | Forum: World Variety and Error Coins |
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| Queen Anne Farthings
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jdsstrat
Valued Member
United States
148 Posts |
Posted 04/13/2025 10:52 am
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Here is an excerpt from the Peck article that I alluded to above:
...With this short account of the various factors and events which retarded
our first essays in coining copper, we are in a better position to consider
two important statements concerning the Anne patterns and also several
pertinent facts that have emerged from an examination of a large number of
specimens, all of which must be reconciled before any worth-while classifica
tion can be drawn up...
2. The existence of these patterns—especially the farthings—in metals other
than copper, in quantities which seem hardly consistent with the Mint's
preoccupation with these experiments.
3. The fact that all the farthings on the medium and small-size flans occur only
in copper, and always have the edge plain, whereas all those in gold, silver,
and tin occur only on the large-diameter flans, and have the edge either
striated or clumsily filed...
Two other points I want to make is that Peck mentions that Sir Isaac Newton was also experimenting with lead as he prepared for the new Anne coinage. Brass too, apparently.
And here is a link to the tin farthing at the British Museum:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/colle...ect/C_E-5611
(BTW, Paddy, Thank you for indulging me and this rabbit hole I find myself down.)
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| | Forum: United Kingdom (Great Britain) Coins |
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| Queen Anne Farthings
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jdsstrat
Valued Member
United States
148 Posts |
Posted 04/13/2025 06:59 am
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Thanks, Paddy! Yes, I should have written that the only examples I can find are made of copper AND EXPENSIVE. That's what got me looking for alternatives in the first place. I put these prohibitively expensive copper ones that I was finding together with what I had read which was that the Anne farthings were minted in other metals, including tin, AND with what I assumed contemporary counterfeiters would have used (i.e., copper AND tin), I put all that together and it added up that tin examples would be (or at least would have been at some point) available. But I can find no evidence in the auction records (London Coins, eBay, Stacks, Heritage...) that this is so. Unless I'm missing something.
Because I am new to all this and want to learn as much as I can, I need to ask: can I assume from the soft details of yours and the somewhat pitted surfaces, that they are cast counterfeits? As in the ones with the seam along the edge? |
| | Forum: United Kingdom (Great Britain) Coins |
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| Queen Anne Farthings
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jdsstrat
Valued Member
United States
148 Posts |
Posted 04/13/2025 01:20 am
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| My wife and I have been watching and enjoying David Starkey's Monarchy. His attempts here and there to illustrate his points using the coinage of the time got me reading up on some things. The farthings of Queen Anne, for example. These were some of the first coins the Royal Mint was to produce in house after the law that ended the experiment with tin. And yet C. Wilson Peck, who would seem to know best, suggests that these farthings were minted in a variety of metals other than copper, including tin. But I can't find them (except at the British Museum). There's nothing but copper and the VERY occasional silver example. Not even a tin cast counterfeit. What gives? |
| | Forum: United Kingdom (Great Britain) Coins |
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| A Continuing Thread ~ Post Your Tokens, Medals, Exonumia Acquisitions
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jdsstrat
Valued Member
United States
148 Posts |
Posted 04/11/2025 11:01 pm
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Here's something you definitely don't see everyday: it's a Bashlow die trial for his 1961 J.J Conway & Co. Bankers Restrike, made from lead as these kinds of dies often are. I have read that the aluminum strikes of this token are extremely hard to come by. How much harder do you think than this die trial?
P.S. If you look close at BANKERS you can see evidence of where Bashlow probably wanted the letters to sit. A comparison with actual struck tokens shows that he chose to leave it alone, after all.
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| | Forum: Tokens, Medals, Challenge Coins, and other Exonumia |
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