Don't worry Weerdsteev, there was a LOT in that article that made me wince.
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It was surreptitiously and illegally cast,
Cast?
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It was struck at the Philadelphia mint in late 1912, the final year of its issue, but with the year 1913 cast on its face
So was it struck or was it cast, make up your mind.
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Mudd said a mint worker named Samuel W. Brown is suspected of producing the coin and altering the die to add the bogus date.
I'm sure Mudd said no such thing. The die was not altered to add a bogus date, the 1913 dies were made because no decision had been made yet as to the adoption of the
Buffalo nickel and they would need dies on hand at the first of the year if the decision didn't come in time.
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The coins' existence weren't known until Brown offered them for sale at the American Numismatic Association Convention in Chicago in 1920, beyond the statute of limitations.
The statute of limitations period does not begin until after a theft has been discovered. If the government wanted to go after Brown the statute of limitations period would have STARTED in 1920 after they were revealed.
Quote:One of Walton's heirs, his sister Melva Givens of Salem, Va., was given the 1913
Liberty nickel after experts declared the coin a fake because of suspicions the date had been altered. The flaw probably happened because of Brown's imprecise work casting the planchet -- the copper and nickel blank disc used to create the coin.
I have some doubts which coin Stacks saw in 1962. Walton was known to have an altered date 1913
V nickel as well. Stacks may have been shown the altered date coin after the accident. When the real one showed up at the
ANA convention the person who saw the coin in 1962 no longer worked for Stacks and they were unable to say who had seen it. And Brown's imprecise work casting the planchet? One, planchets aren't cast, and two why would Brown cast one when the mint had thousands of them available laying around.
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Melva Givens put the coin in an envelope and stuck it in a closet, where it stayed for the next 30 years until her death in 1992.
The coin caught the curiosity of Cheryl Myers' brother, Ryan, the executor of his mother's estate. "He'd take it out and look at it for long periods of time," she said.
When it showed up the Walton family said at that time that it had been put in the closet in 1962 and not brought out since.
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A team of rare coin experts concluded it was the long-missing fifth coin. Each shared a small imperfection under the date.
I'm not aware of any imperfection under the date on these coins.
Posted 01/29/2013 11:57 am
