Requesting Intelligent, Well-Thought-Out Opinions IHC

Pareidolia

I'm really hoping the OP takes the time to respond to these hopefully "intelligent and well thought-out" opinions.

If there is something(s) along the way that I have missed, I would really like to hear more. I seriously tried to apply logic to this.

1) From what I have read, 'striking' is a little bit of a misnomer, in that while that is what the dies do the effect that is produced on the planchet is more akin to squeezing. Anything already on the planchet does not get obliterated. It doesn't work that way. Each strike or squeeze reconfigures the surface....anything previous is incorporated into what comes next. So, you have a situation where any given design is made up of a combination of relief and incuse aspects. Let's say you strike 10 different designs onto a planchet, one on top of another and at different orientations. From a forensic standpoint, especially when you make a photographic enlargement of the planchet, there may well be enough remainders of the first design to be able to identify what it was. The higher the relief, the more difficult it is to eliminate ALL traces, even after a bunch of successive overstrikes. Is that not so?

2) Pareidolia....seems much more vague than what's on this coin. See below for a photo I took about 5 years ago. Someone could say, Native American angel! No. It's a cool photo, but it's just clouds.

3) Can anyone show me any other coins that look very close to what appears on this one? I have studied quite a number, including Indian Heads, with mighty similar level of weathering and have seen nothing anomalous on them whatsoever.

4) I have tried to be very thorough and consider other aspects, such as where I found the coin. In the 1860s, the property was owned by a man named Chauncey Millspaugh. During that same time, the assayer at the New Orleans Mint was Howard Millspaugh. A couple of other guys with that last name were also involved with high-end coin collecting at the time. It's not exactly a common name like Smith or Jones. Finally, in the town where the property is located, there is an old legend of a silver mine having existed somewhere in the town. Well, it just so happens that approximately 300 feet from where I found the coin, I found a chunk of ore....galena with a fairly high silver content. See photo below. It's the only piece that has been found thus far to suggest the possibility of truth to the legend.

Put this all together and it's a bit intriguing.

So....all nothing but a 'coin'cidence?

I don't mind you jacrispies using my 1877, so feel free to use my images to keep the education ball rolling ...

Decent? Really? I did see Jesus in a tortilla once tho...

There is an online reference guide that explains the possible striking errors. This guide has been created by the giants in the field, the experts who have identified and handled tens of thousands of error coins. I invite you to match your coin to one of these errors.

I can only offer that I have been a coin collector for more than 50 years and a coin dealer for more than 45 years. I just retired this past month. Based on that experience, I do not see any possible way your coin could exhibit any of the issues that you describe. It simply is a badly worn, corroded IHC.

Okay, 'nuff said.

For the record, neither the coin nor the chunk of ore were found with a metal detector. We had large gardens and both were turned up with a rototiller. The coin was actually sitting flat on top of the ground, indicating it had been turned up during the previous tilling session and hadn't happened to be noticed at that time....probably because the soil had been darker from dampness and then the top dried out and lightened.

Hmm....maybe noticing something man-made amidst all of the rocks, even though it was that small, has the flip side of seeing something man-made that isn't?

Oh well, in any case I will leave the rabbit hole behind and move on.

Thanks for the replies.

to the Community!