Canadian Blacksmith Coppers - Inquiry

Colonial John, I just happened to spot this thread, and I remember posting pictures of a BL-24b Ships, colonies & Commerce. You commented at that time that although "it is a huge find", you can expect graders to give it a Fine, not Very Fine. Well, I submitted it to to ICCS, and received it back as a GOOD !The Charleton plate is a horrible picture, and mine far exceeds it in grade. I would like to ask you where there are pictures (images) of better BL-24b's. If mine is only a Good, what does a better one look like?

Thank you very much for your reply, and pictures. Such a great group makes it easy to generalize a grade for my token. When colonialjohn and I shared thoughts last year, he compared it to some he had, and figured it to be very fine, but warned me to expect less, as most people don't understand how these tokens were produced. I am including pictures and you can see why I think mine is a very fine - and my pictures are just so-so. Let me know what you think.

I fully agree. I intend to resubmit the token to NGC, as I saw your best token was correctly graded. a great looking token, I might add. Thanks again for the opinion, and for your help.

Undoubtedly, CCCS is the best place to send Canadian colonial tokens for grading. I'm amazed that the NGC EF posted by ainsi actually looks correct.

can someone please provide me more information, or a link to this book?

I believe I have a blacksmith/counterfiet token - one side looks very much like the first picture from 1960NYGiant's post from 04-04-18 - but it has a faint bust on the other side.

I have a Wood 36. I disagree with your interpretation that this is an imitation of a George II halfpenny. The date is retrograde, i.e. reversed, so the portrait probably reversed too. How many have you actually seen? Charlton BL 56 says "less" presumably means fewer than 5 known. I have a example, illustrated below. I would welcome your comments.

@Glyn: Personally, this is only the third example I'm aware of. One is in the collection of the Bank of Canada Museum (Charlton Catalog Plate), and the second in the collection of the ANS Museum.

Certainly a very rare token.

Inquiry: I have a Wood 36. I disagree with your interpretation that this is an imitation of a George II halfpenny. The date is retrograde, i.e. reversed, so the portrait probably reversed too. How many have you actually seen? Charlton BL 56 says "less" presumably means fewer than 5 known. I have a example, illustrated below. I would welcome your comments.

Response:

In the late Bill Anton Collection there is also a specimen so we may have 4-5 known? It was his specimen that Warren Baker desired for years as he felt it was the FINEST KNOWN that he never sold to Baker that I analyzed with SEM/EDS and found its microstructure to be cast. If you are a student of collecting English/Irish George II/III CCC 1/2d we do see that there is a large percentage of George II CCCs which are cast pieces and we could suggest here nearly half of George II CCC English 1/2d are cast and not struck by dies. Once we approach George III issues although CCC dates vary beyond the 1770-1775 regal years there is a consensus among experts that maybe 12-24 GIII English CCC CAST pieces are known of any date within the regal years and beyond - possibly. Its this MAIN reason this piece was considered mid-18thC since it was metallurgically verified as CAST. Furthermore, if you fast forward nearly a century into the future with Pre-Confederation Canadian pieces like Blacksmiths which we generally consider ~c.1820-1840(5) the likelihood that a counterfeiter would risk passing a cast specimen into business THIS LATE IN TIME is very unlikely. We want Wood 36 to be a Blacksmith since its worth is then $5,000 -up but history and its metallurgical assay suggest mid-18thC as with other GII cast issues and not an early 19thC emission so its worth then would be $500-1,000. However once a coin reaches four figures and due to its extreme rarity few people if any will follow the logic in this post. You should realize as more pieces of W36 do get analyzed for their microstructure utilizing SEM/EDS you do have the dilemma as to WHY is Wood 36 the only Blacksmith variety or associated Blacksmith type we see in Charlton that is cast and not struck? John Lorenzo, Numismatist, United States.