Modern Proof Maria Theresa Thaler?

Absolutely agreed! Thank you your useful information, austrokiwi.

to be honest I have looked much at the claws so I can't comment I suppose its something I am going to have to look at, But for now I am not much help.

wonghinghi- Yes, I agree that the London-struck coin is the older of the two that I showed on 2/19/2013. However, all of the edge shots that I posted do not include an edge view of the London coin. Rather, I posted my possible H61a coin beneath a MTT that I'm fairly sure is an H62. So my above post from 2/20/2013 compares the edges of the H62 and H61a.

austrokiwi- Great! Thanks. I would be very curios to hear your findings on how the length of the eagle's claws indicate the date of striking.

Getting a range of known date edges is easier than for the other two sides of the coins. the counter-stamps too often obliterate details Archraz you wanted to look at the claws. Of the coin edges posted only three can give information on the claws



Next one is Melwacks 1980 counter-mark





And then the 1995

Wow what a hard question to answer. for the 18th early 19th century the answer would be easy as each die was hand cut ( although there was some uniformity created by the use of Piece punches for the main design elements. the rest of this is thinking as I write. The modern die making techniques first involved a large positive plaster( or similarly suitable material) model of the coins face which is then placed in a reduction machine. That reduction machine then cut the reduced reverse image into the die. in the later part of the 20th century Plaster was replaced with an Electrotype ( to make the model.) In the 18th century dies would a best last for 25000-50000 strikes and then new dies would be cut by . In the 20th century you a looking at well over 100,000 strikes before the die needs to be replaced. That brings us back to the model used to cut the dies.....If plaster I am sure it was not overly durable and after a while a new model would need to be made this would see a set frequency of minor changes in form occurring. However an electro type would last even longer ( creating more uniformity for longer periods of time. So there would still be variations but we would see them less and less frequently. So in answer to the question we see variations so they must have occurred how frequently and when is much harder to track. Those variations would be simply a result of the medalists slight variation from the norm. Yes claw length may be a variation but with restike post 1960s MTT it is IMHO a lot less important than those seen pre 1960s which are also less important than the pre 1853 restrikes.

Archraz you might want to get a hold of Walter Hafners book the lexicon of the MAria Theresa thaler. MY research has made some of the attributions in that book look very questionable( but only for a very few varieties) but still there is nothing better. It is still available here in Vienna ( last time I looked it cost aprox €21.00)