My Liberty Cap Large Cent Gear/Pie Crimper?

I'm like my Dad, if I'm not reading at least 3 or 4 books a week, check me for a pulse. Always gotta be learning. :)

I had training in gear design way back in my ME classes, but most of my practical experience is with clocks.

There are three things that tell me it was not a clock gear, nor were any of the others in the link (besides the ratchet wheel). A gear needs to make contact with the mating pinion with multiple teeth on order to carry load without breaking. This requires a fairly deep root, which none of these have. A gear also needs extremely precise spacing on the teeth to operate with constant inertia and minimal backlash. Again, these do not exhibit that. Dividing wheels have been around for over 300 years and can be used to create gears precise to fractions of a degree. Lastly, the hole in the center isn't large enough. Clock gears aren't fitted directly to shafts. They are fitted to a larger shoulder and staked into place. Given the thickness of the cent and diameter of the hole, an adequate (non slipping) fit would be impossible.

Also, in early movements, the only wheel that even comes close to the diameter of an LC is the escape wheel. This is the one that engages with the pallets and must be light, precise, and have extremely deep roots. Here's a picture to show how far off these are from an escape wheel.


These coins all share enough similarity to show that they served some regular purpose in early American life. Strange that none exist attached to whatever mechanism with which they were used. I have never heard of anyone pulling back a clock dial and seeing a large cent as part of the movement, although I did see one with a Wheat cent soldered to the plate to fix a worn bushing.

I'm going with pie crimper. I like pie.

Pumpkin for me

I would love to see that.

The least you could do for the lady.

Why not. We have speculated stranger things about other coins in the past.

Truth.