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 Replies: 13 / Views: 10,934 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1302 Posts |
for those of you who are Washington quarter guys, what is the deal with the drum the drummer boy is holding? Having gone through hundreds of these in mint state- I find that it is extremely rare to find one that has full drum detail. Maybe 1 in 5 will have most of the drum detail and the rest will have varying degrees of what looks like either die sink or completely unstruck drum rims. I'd like to know more about this issue and hope someone in the forums has a hypothesis. c |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3486 Posts |
Off the top of my head, the cupro-nickel composition of the circulating examples could not take the impression of the die.
Examine a proof silver example for comparison.
Examples of all five cent pieces and all post-1964 dimes, quarters and halves show the same weaknesses.
As for the high point, the drum, it might have taken the impression at first but was flattened as the die came crashing down.
This is a favorite design of mine. I had to look through a lot of pocket change before selecting an example or two to save.
I also wanted a nice-looking drum!
It was fun to see them in circulation.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
1302 Posts |
I took a look at the top pop drummer boys at PCGS and it seems that they have what I'd call an 85% complete drum impression (on the clads). Does anybody know or have seen a complete drum? If an MS-68 doesn't have it, I wonder how many might exist. Must be rare.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7840 Posts |
A Proof 69 is missing a little bit of that detail as well  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1302 Posts |
I'm starting to think a full drum coin will be a PQ piece down the line... hold em if you find em... my next week's CoinWeek article deals with these fellas.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4132 Posts |
My PR69DCAM has complete drum details, but it's silver. I suspect full drum details is more common (or even always present) on the silver proofs because they're softer.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2270 Posts |
Quote:
I'm starting to think a full drum coin will be a PQ piece down the line... hold em if you find em... my next week's CoinWeek article deals with these fellas.
Way cool. I look forward to it. This coin is very hard to find with a 100% strike. It's actually quite well made with lots of great dies and great strikes but the last thing to form on the coin is the clasp on the top of the drum. Normally this wouldn't be much of an issue except the typical nice strike of any coin is really only about 99.% complete and this clasp doesn't show until it's virtually 100%. It's not a rare coin even 100% but it's tough enough and obvious enough to be a challenge. Few collectors take this coin very seriously and don't even know that nice gems with a full drum are a little tough. People aren't collecting them or the only source of supply would show the effects and become picked over. These are very scarce in rolls and bags (yes, bags do exist) and they are pretty unusual in 1975 mint sets. But they are nearly "common" in 1976 mint sets with nearly 4% being full strike gems. While many of the coins in both '75 and '76 mint sets are pretty gemmy making them quite common very few will have full drums. Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3077 Posts |
off to look.... I have never even givin this much thought
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Pillar of the Community
United States
530 Posts |
Iv got one of these proofs with the full drum lines, had it forever, I just looked at it,ill try to get picture up if you want, but it has full lines on rows 2,3,4 from the left.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1302 Posts |
If anyone has a nice high res image of a clad biz strike with or without a full drum, I'd love to be able to use it. I'll credit you in the article. PM me if you want.
Edited by cc99999
03/28/2012 12:35 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7840 Posts |
Edited by oih82w8
03/28/2012 12:40 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7840 Posts |
Edited by oih82w8
03/28/2012 12:45 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4132 Posts |
I think that last one must be a picture of the galvano.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3755 Posts |
Never gave this much thought. Have to check them closer now.
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Replies: 13 / Views: 10,934 |
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Posted 03/25/2012 02:43 am
