Sap's Last 20 Posts
| 1985 Trade Dollar - Niagara Falls
|
|
Sap
Moderator
Australia
16243 Posts |
 Posted Today 8H 54M ago
|
| These "trade dollars" are technically tokens, not coins, as there is no government authorization for their issue. The Niagara Falls Chamber of Commerce is a business association, not a government. And they are "tokens" rather than "medals" because they were sold for face value (1 Canadian dollar) and, theoretically, redeemable for that face value (prior to the expiry date) from participating businesses. Of course, the vast majority of them were kept as souvenirs rather than redeemed for goods. |
| | Forum: Canadian Coin Grading |
|
| Found In The 1970's In The UK But What It Is Please?
|
|
Sap
Moderator
Australia
16243 Posts |
Posted 04/18/2025 10:17 am
|
I do not know for sure what it is, but my assumption would be a fantasy replica of an ancient coin, made for jewellery purposes.
The thing in the centre is a crude caricature-like portrait not really resembling any specific portrait on Greek or Roman coins.
The legend reads something like HOKE XOLDAIUIOXO. Which is nonsensical gibberish in English, Latin or Greek, though perhaps it's closer to Greek than anything else. |
| | Forum: Identification: Unidentified Coins, Medals, and Tokens |
| |
| Augustus Denarius (19-18 Bce): Legit Or Fake?
|
|
Sap
Moderator
Australia
16243 Posts |
Posted 04/18/2025 09:43 am
|
| If you must buy ancients from eBay, then at least stay away from any seller found on the Notorious Fake Seller List, maintained over on the FORVM forum. While anyone who sells ancient coins might sometimes sell a fake coin by accident, the NFSL contains only sellers who deliberately, repeatedly, maliciously and unrepentantly sell fakes. |
| | Forum: Ancient, Greek, Roman, and Medieval Coins |
| |
| Question About DDR's On Lincoln Cents
|
|
Sap
Moderator
Australia
16243 Posts |
Posted 04/18/2025 09:32 am
|
Doubling is, in effect, a failure of quality control - which is of course why they are rare and sought after. A modern, high-tech, first-world mint like the US Mint ought to have very good quality control systems in place, to prevent such mistakes from being made.
I'm sure that after the 1955 debacle, the US Mint put extra procedures in place to make sure another 1955 never happened again. |
| | Forum: US Modern Variety and Error Coins |
| |
| Question About Solid Serial Numbers
|
|
Sap
Moderator
Australia
16243 Posts |
Posted 04/18/2025 09:04 am
|
Quote:
Do employees at the mint watch for these bills and snag them...
No. the BEP likes their employees to be ignorant of how certain notes are more collectable/desirable/valuable than others. Anyone who's a collector is unlikely to be hired by them. There is no legal mechanism by which an employee at the BEP can simply swap out a note in their pocket for a freshly printed note. And anyone found actually stealing a note from the unissued note stockpile would have all of the books thrown at them.
Quote:
...or does the mint keep them and auction them off?
Some countries have their "special" serial numbers separated from the regular print run and sold/auctioned off, but the United States BEP does not.
Quote:
This next question is probably stupid to ask but....Do they actually get put into circulation?
Yes, they do simply get put into circulation.
And the answer to your next question, "So why haven't I ever found one then", is simple, and it's related to the reason why they are actually quite valuable on the collector market: they're really, really, really rare.
Modern US notes have eight-digit serial numbers. Assuming they printed every number from 00000001 to 99999999, that's a hundred million notes in a sequence. Out of those hundred million notes, only ten of those notes are going to be "solids". So that's literally a one in ten million chance that a note selected at random is going to be a solid. Or to put it in another perspective, that's only slightly better odds than winning the top prize of a standard 6-ball lottery. You'd literally have to search through millions of notes to give yourself a reasonable chance of finding one.
Adding to the difficulty of finding one is, of course, the fact that you aren't the only person looking. I'd even think many non-banknote-collectors, on being given a solid serial number note in change or from the bank (and assuming they actually pay attention enough to notice the serial number), that they'd keep it, or at least look it up on the Internet to see if it was in fact rare or special. Thus, at least some of that tiny percentage of notes that are solids are going to be fished out of the money supply by other people before you even start looking. |
| | Forum: US Paper Money and Banknotes |
|
| 1936f 2 Reichspfennig Error
|
|
Sap
Moderator
Australia
16243 Posts |
Posted 04/15/2025 12:01 am
|
Quote:
Maybe you're right...maybe not. Have you seen this before on any other coin? Is this something that comes up in the numismatic field of fakery?
The kind of tooling as I'm suggesting here is quite commonly seen on ancient coins, where it's a lot easier to get away with it since ancient coins are a lot more rougher and "hand-crafted" to begin with. It isn't anywhere near as common on modern machine-struck coinage.
I'll happily admit I have no idea why anyone would go to the trouble to do that to a (relatively) common coin, other than perhaps someone hoping to make big bucks selling it as a high-grade coin.Perhaps they were practicing their art on a cheap coin before having a go at "improving" a more valuable target. And just because you bought it cheaply, does not mean its previous owner had also bought it cheaply; perhaps they had been suckered into paying a high price.
It may seem improbable, but any kind of "mint error" hypothesis is even less probable: raised lumps on a coin mean missing bits from the die, so someone in the Stuttgart mint in 1936 hacked away at a worn die, perhaps in an attempt to try to recreate details. It would be far easier for that mint worker to simply throw the worn die away and get a new one made from the master hub.
There are two other options not yet considered:
- It's a counterfeit coin, in which case, all bets are off as far as die quality is concerned. This does link back to the "why bother" question, though.
- Some kind of glue or varnish is stuck on the coin, and has mostly been removed except from those hard to reach spots. This is surprisingly likely, as clear glue, lacquer or varnish sitting on metal can easily fool us into thinking it's solid metal there. Giving the coin a swish in acetone ought to rule out this option. |
| | Forum: World Variety and Error Coins |
| |
| Five Japanese Yen With A Counterpunch
|
|
Sap
Moderator
Australia
16243 Posts |
Posted 04/14/2025 11:17 pm
|
| Just privately marked, of no real significance; who, where and when is impossible to know. In that sense, it's no different to finding a "7" punched into a Lincoln cent. "Just someone fooling around with their number-punch kit" is the usual explanation. |
| | Forum: World Variety and Error Coins |
| |
| 1936f 2 Reichspfennig Error
|
|
Sap
Moderator
Australia
16243 Posts |
Posted 04/13/2025 6:30 pm
|
I would suspect tooling, and of the coin rather than of the die. Someone has dremelled down the fields, except for the crevices between the letters and other hard to reach places.
The way the ridge is perfectly circular around the wreath, even though the wreath itself is not perfectly circular... that's not natural, or accidental. Someone has deliberately re-carved the coin to look like this.
Given that some features, such as the oak leaves in the wreath, are worn flat and not edited I suspect someone has taken a worn coin and "improved" it by re-engraving some of the missing details, such as the eagle feathers. |
| | Forum: World Variety and Error Coins |
| |
| Need Help With This Uniface Token? (Id: 18th Century English Hop Token Issued By Thomas Daws)
|
|
Sap
Moderator
Australia
16243 Posts |
Posted 04/10/2025 11:29 pm
|
And finally, a note on the denomination.
Some hops tokens are clearly denominated in "bushels" - that is, the number of bushels of hops a picker had picked. Other hops tokens are clearly denominated in shillings and pence. Others, like the OP's token, are just indeterminate numbers and it's uncertain which unit is being measured, volume or money. I'm still leaning towards "pence", i.e. a shilling, for this piece. There is a larger denomination in the Thomas Daws token series, with the value "60" (which if that's in pence would be 5 shillings, or a crown); there's no need to denote the tokens in multiples of 12 if you're measuring bushels rather than pence. |
| | Forum: Tokens, Medals, Challenge Coins, and other Exonumia |
| |
| Victorian Token With Mystery Markings On The Reverse
|
|
Sap
Moderator
Australia
16243 Posts |
Posted 04/10/2025 10:38 pm
|
The design is intended to imitate the obverse of a sovereign, much like the "Cumberland jacks" and similar, which were used as playing-card tokens. Here I suspect the token dates from after 1883 when the British banned card tokens that resemble gold coins, leaving the token maker no option but to put just a blank reverse - which the subsequent token-owner has presumably stamped with their name, initials or some other mark of ownership.
Playing-card tokens made to resemble South African gold ponds also date from around this same time period - they're not "imitating a British gold coin", so thus were technically legal. |
| | Forum: Identification: Unidentified Coins, Medals, and Tokens |
| |
| Need Help With This Uniface Token? (Id: 18th Century English Hop Token Issued By Thomas Daws)
|
|
Sap
Moderator
Australia
16243 Posts |
Posted 04/10/2025 9:51 pm
|
Some more background information, from the Wikipedia article on hops:
Quote:
The need for massed labor at harvest time meant hop-growing had a big social impact. Around the world, the labor-intensive harvesting work involved large numbers of migrant workers who would travel for the annual hop harvest. Whole families would participate and live in hoppers' huts, with even the smallest children helping in the fields. The final chapters of W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage and a large part of George Orwell's A Clergyman's Daughter contain a vivid description of London families participating in this annual hops harvest. In England, many of those picking hops in Kent were from eastern areas of London. This provided a break from urban conditions that was spent in the countryside. People also came from Birmingham and other Midlands cities to pick hops in the Malvern area of Worcestershire. Some photographs have been preserved.
The often-appalling living conditions endured by hop pickers during the harvest became a matter of scandal across Kent and other hop-growing counties. Eventually, the Rev. John Young Stratton, Rector of Ditton, Kent, began to gather support for reform, resulting in 1866 in the formation of the Society for the Employment and Improved Lodging of Hop Pickers. The hop-pickers were given very basic accommodation, with very poor sanitation. This led to the spread of infectious diseases and led to contaminated water. The 1897 Maidstone typhoid epidemic was partly as a result of hop-pickers camping near the Farleigh Springs which supplied Maidstone with water.
Particularly in Kent, because of a shortage of small-denomination coin of the realm, many growers issued their own currency to those doing the labor. In some cases, the coins issued were adorned with fanciful hops images, making them quite beautiful. |
| | Forum: Tokens, Medals, Challenge Coins, and other Exonumia |
| |
| 1993 Penny With Partial Copper Plating Missing Reverse
|
|
Sap
Moderator
Australia
16243 Posts |
Posted 04/10/2025 6:47 pm
|
The way electroplating works, "incomplete plating" looks more like the one in Errorhunter1's link, and not like the OP's coin.
I believe mild heat will do this. Not hot enough to melt the copper or zinc, but just hot enough for the copper to start to dissolve into the zinc. Also a low-oxygen environment or reducing flame, so the coin does not blacken or burn. |
| | Forum: US Modern Variety and Error Coins |
| |
| Need Help With This Uniface Token? (Id: 18th Century English Hop Token Issued By Thomas Daws)
|
|
Sap
Moderator
Australia
16243 Posts |
Posted 04/10/2025 6:30 pm
|
Quote:
Same. Not many tokens or coins are made of lead.
Actually, there are lots and lots of tokens made from lead. In Britain and in Europe more generally, mediaeval and early modern tokens are normally made from lead. However, the style of lettering on this piece precludes it from being too early.
In this case, surprisingly, a Google search for "lead token TD" came up success, with the forbidden webpage coming up as a top hit.
There's an image of three different denominations of these lead TD tokens: 12, 6 and "D", which I'm going to steal:
This sequence of numbers indicate these are tokens for the British predecimal monetary system; the "12" token must be a shilling, or 12 pence. As for the purpose of the tokens, to quote from the website (which is an archived eBay sale):
Quote:
18th Cent. Lead HOP PICKERS TOKENS x 3 T D THOMAS DAWS, SOGGS FARM, EWHURST
THREE Tokens. Type: British Lead HOP TOKENS: Surret, Kent, Sussex. Time Period: 18th Century.
So, your token is a 1 shilling / 12 pence token for the estate of an English hop farmer by the name of Thomas Daws, used for paying their farm workers some time in the 1700s. Late 1700s, by the style of lettering; I would assume it dates from the English coinage shortage of the 1780s and 1790s. As for value, well, the three-token set went unsold with a £10 initial ask price.
The Daws family is still growing hops in the region, according to this website: https://englishhops.com/pages/the-g...bFasCX_Jr8nJ |
| | Forum: Tokens, Medals, Challenge Coins, and other Exonumia |
| |
| Replica Widow's Mite Or Not?
|
|
Sap
Moderator
Australia
16243 Posts |
Posted 04/09/2025 11:07 pm
|
While it is clearly different from the machine-struck mass-marketed replica widows mites, it is nevertheless derived from them - the shape of the flan is identical, as is that odd "hook" sticking off from the rim, which is like nothing I've seen on any actual ancient coin.
I have speculated in the past threads on why these machine-struck replicas look like this, and my best guess is the design is copied from an old drawing or rubbing of a widows mite, rather than from an actual coin.
My assumption for your piece would be someone obtained one of those machine-struck replicas, and then proceeded to make a cast replica of that, "improving" the design in the process. |
| | Forum: Ancient, Greek, Roman, and Medieval Coins |
| |
| Which Nero Coin Is Most Desired?
|
|
Sap
Moderator
Australia
16243 Posts |
Posted 04/09/2025 6:36 pm
|
| But in terms of a Twelve Caesars set, perhaps the most important consideration is a coin where the emperor's name is clearly readable - since, if you're doing any kind of display arrangement, you're probably going to be putting the coins face-up. |
| | Forum: Ancient, Greek, Roman, and Medieval Coins |
|
|
