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 Replies: 18 / Views: 2,287 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1372 Posts |
What appears to be "wear" on this coin, is largely damage from being hammered half to death between the dies of a double eagle, 1 dollar gold, and the seated half dies themselves. Probably a bargain at 45 dollars if you like this sort of oddity. Chance http://www.ebay.com/itm/1858-VG-SEA...em3375b84b69Edited by Chancellor Sutler
09/12/2012 7:35 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3486 Posts |
I have yet to see a coin offered by this seller to be worthy of much more than a sad laugh.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3345 Posts |
I searched for a LONG time in their ebay store and found ONE coin that I thought was a good deal and wasnt cleaned. So I bought it for $20 |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
1372 Posts |
Look at this one a little ... there are raised devices on the rim of the coin, and a wire rim present. I'm just contending that what you see isn't wear.
I'm not offended by some types of cleaning. That issue has been a swinging pendulum for decades. In 10 years, it will have much less weight than it seems to today. Nearly all of these old coins were cleaned. It was custoomary to "take care of" your coins. I see silver coins in slabs that have "toning" that is eating into the surfaces. It reaches a point of stupidity.
Chance
Edited by Chancellor Sutler
09/12/2012 7:39 pm
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Valued Member
United States
115 Posts |
"hammered half to death between the dies of a double eagle, 1 dollar gold, and the seated half dies themselves"
Are you sure of that?
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
36638 Posts |
Not sure I see what you are talking about in regards to the coin being hammered. The blow up photos don't show any signs of imprints from other coins. Can you point out what you see and where?
Looks like a worn coin that was cleaned awhile ago and retoned.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1372 Posts |
This one is so busy and has been struck so many times that it's hard to find much of anything that's coherent. I see pieces of lettering, poms from the 1 dollar gold obverse ... but dismiss all of that for a second and riddle me this ... under what circumstances would a coin be worn to this point and retain a wire edge? Also, look at the rim of the shield ... toward the bottom in particular ... that's not worn. There's no way that this damage wasn't mechanically inflicted. Also, the little dots on the rim would not be present if this coin was worn to this state.
I theorize that somebody at the mint had a little prfit sharing gig ... intentionally placing coins between the dies of gold denominations and trying to get small amounts of gold to stick to the coins, which could be smuggled out of the mint easier than a small vial of gold. It's a theory ... but clearly something was going on for the years 1857 and 1858. There are too many coins with positive impressions of gold denominations imprinted on them. There's a 57 flying eagle in crappy condition with a couple flecks of gold showing that I may buy and drop into a vessel of nitric acid just to see what's left. That will definitely answer whether or not these specks I am seeing on these cents and halves are actually gold imparted from the dies. I wouldn't dissolve a half ... and I'm not sure that nitric acid would dissolve the silver anyway, but the cent I'm talking abut would be less than 10 dollars delivered, so that's a not a huge investment to prove to myself that these flecks are indeed gold.
This all raises more questions than answers. I hve looked at hundreds of flying eagle images today. I've been doing it for a couple weeks. I don't believe the 1858/7 to be an overdate at all ... but a by product of prodction related to inter denominational clashing. There are subtle differences from one example to another, and one of the best examples I've looked at has significant clashing (in the traditional sense, blank and lacking detail ...just an outline) and it appears to me to be the inside corner where 2 leaves bisect in a wreath reverse.
I found one FE that's so "busy" and just too cheap to pass up. It's pretty much a poster child for this phenomena.
I sneak in here and post between jobs, and I work at home, so I have to be careful about how much time I take playing in my photo editing software. This half has so much going on that it'd be just as useful for somebody looking at it to enlarge it themselves and really spend time studying it. Study the other denomination designs too. You can't see what you can't identify.
Chance
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Valued Member
United States
115 Posts |
The half is nothing more than a weak strike. All this talk about it being struck with $20 and $1 gold coin dies is just flat wrong. There is nothing in those images to even suggest such a thing. If the half had been struck with $20 dies you would not need any magnification to see it. Sorry Chance but this is all just a bunch of wild ideas with no facts or images to back it up. Prove any of it and I'll say I'm wrong.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1372 Posts |
Frankly ... I don't have to prove anything to you. You can see it as you wish.
Chance
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Valued Member
United States
115 Posts |
No, you don't have to prove anything but it goes a long ways in getting folks to believe it.
The study of this topic has been going on for many years. I joined it in about 1975. In 1977 DeLorey and Fivaz put it all together. That started the best in the business on a study that's now about 35 years old and has never stopped. I hope you do find something really cool but I'm not seeing it from what you have posted.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3184 Posts |
Looks like weak strike or just its of wear. If It was stuck between other coins, we would easily see the imprints.
Idhair is well known ATS (across the street) and I agree with him
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1372 Posts |
I should apologize for seeming a bit short fused. I guess what I meant, is that this is just some stuff I have noticed, and it's a fascination, not my profession, so spending inordinate amount of time (given my work load) just can't happenright now. I manufacture a product in my home ... start to finish. It's very labor intensive and I'm always behind.
The one thing that's certain ... is that something was going on during these couple years that wasn't going on previously, or after. The problem seems to have all but gone away in 1859. There's just so much surface noise on almost all of the coinage that "something" was going on.
I still contend that there's no way that this half is worn to that point and again refer you to the bottom of the shield. That outline is abruptly broken. Coins don't wear that way.
Having looked at so many coins from these couple years the past few weeks, this one has letters present, pieces of banners, the starbursts that are in the poms of the headress on the 1$ gold, but there's just so much damage, that as soon as you think you can string more than a couple letters together, the pattern is broken. I just get the impression that this is mecahnically damaged. I could be wrong... sure.
One thing that's interesting to do on the seted half dollars, is looking for the eagle's head from the reverse of the double eagle. It can be found on numerous specimans from these years. The pick up point for that ... is a series of short broken lines that represent the top of the shield. If you can locate the center of the shield, look above and to the left and you can spot the eagle's eye and usually the bill. It appears pretty clearly within the shield on a lot of these half dollars, and the eagle's eye shows up on her arm, on her leg ... about anywhere. These parts of designs seem to repeat... never a single strike.
Chance
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Valued Member
United States
115 Posts |
Sorry again Chance but you should not be posting fiction as fact.
New collectors will take it as being true.
Everything you keep posting about gold die clashes is false information.
I would guess you are enlarging images beyond what they are able to show.
At that point imagination takes over.
Yes I understand that you don't care what a new member has to say.
Hope you can get over that.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
14454 Posts |
what looks like wear looks like wear to me
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1372 Posts |
If you look back a few posts ... I specifically said that it was a theory. You do know what a theory is, don't you?
By the way ... I recognized the attitude from "across the street". That's why I left there. The condescension is far too prevalent. There's no room for conjecture. There are only 2 classes of members. There are "know it alls" and "know nothings".
Chance
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
14454 Posts |
I am one that definitely knows nothing about these types of clashing and actually never even heard of it until you started talking about it on here. But I was just calling it the way I see it and to me it looks like wear. I may be completely wrong but thats still what it looks like to me. With all of this being said it seems you are touchy when it comes to others trying to share their knowledge about this subject with you . I do not see anyone in any of your threads on this subject that are attacking you or putting you down in any way (as you know that is one thing we do not allow). I see it as someone that may have allot more knowledge than you now possess trying to educate you so you will know what to look for and know what it is when you see it. That is what these types of coin forums are for, the ones with the knowledge to pass on to the ones that are interested in the same type of things. I know I sure have learned quite a bit on the subject just by reading what has been posted by the members that do know this type of oddity that I never even heard of before
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Replies: 18 / Views: 2,287 |
Posted 09/12/2012 7:31 pm
