Recent Crowns Purchased

The problems are shown on the attached sketch;

Yellow circles are around raised lumps and marks on the coin's surface which mean they correspond to holes in the die or mold. They must be appropriate to originals of the era. On the 6 originals I examined (all at a larger scale than you photo and all clear) there are VERY FEW such anomalies and all look like chips that have developed in steel dies. These tend to form in clusters very typical of plastic casts. They are seen on the fields and on high point details (die recesses). The worst in my opinion are the lines on the neck and the single line in the hair left of the eye. This curved line crosses the outer curl and crosses it in a reversed s shape to the curl above. It is not the only one but is terribly incorrect. Looks like an object like a string was on the host coin before the cast was made. When the cast was pulled off the string left a hole in the mold resulting in a raised impression of the string. The neck feature several parallel lines RAISED look like small splits seen in plastic casts that were removed early causing surface breaks. They could also ce accidental post cast damage to the mold (which is softer than a steel die).

The blue circles point out the soft breaks in the mold where literal chips or surface strips of the mold's surface have peeled away at some point before this coin was made. Looks like they added just a bit to the length of the nose and the portion under the nose which appears slightly raised on the coin but should not be. The chin looks like it was damaged possibly slightly displaced. The eyebrow shows conclusive evidence of a loss of mold/die material resulting in a higher than normal relief of the eyebrow.

The red circles show the problems with the letters that I raised. Often cast transfer images share this precise feature a RAISED margin at the edge of the letter as if metal was dragged upward. On the coin itself it will be identifiable as part of the cast. A slightly similar feature is often seen on modern coins because of high speed apparatus and ejectors. But in the 1770's these features are a real warning. On fakes they usually are accompanied by hollow letter tops. These areas should be examined (because they are protected surfaces). On an original coin this would be a portion of undisturbed surface from the pre-strike planchet - look for lamination lines that are PARALLEL across the whole surface of the coin NOT RADIAL.

The green circles are on anomalies of the dentils. This could be attributed to a number of causes and some are clues to forgery. If the coin is a contemporary counterfeit - those lines could indicate the coin is a Sheffield plate and the circular depression is associated with a ribbon edging system. They coul also point to post strike edging which would be anomalous in 1770's because most mints had adopted pre-strike edging (milling) as a method of applying the edge lettering. So I have a question were these coins edged before or after they were struck?

In a more general way I was also bothered by the seeming lack of die erosion lines at the edge.

Hello epikur and swamperbob, I give my coin here for your comparison and discussion. I declare my coin is genuine and it weighs 29.02 grams, diameter is 40.8-41.5mm.
Yes, epikur, can you also post some edge picture of this coin and tell the weight of your coin? I have no idea about the meaning of the edge inscription so can you tell me if you know? Thanks, Henry