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Replies: 26 / Views: 1,900 |
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Moderator
  United States
16679 Posts |
My scale does it all. I'll do grain and gram.
swcoin.ecrater.com
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3253 Posts |
For those of you playing at home, one gram is 15.4323584 grains.
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Moderator
  United States
16679 Posts |
Okay, hold on to your seats! I don't know what I have here.
I weighed the coin and weighed a problem free Connecticut Copper in my collection. First, the discussed coin:
156.9 grains 10.20 grams
Problem free Connec.
105.1 grains 6.83 grams
By the way, my scale is perfectly calibrated.
swcoin.ecrater.com
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3253 Posts |
Well, the official regal halfpenny standard at mid-century was 46 to the pound (152.2 grains). Would be interesting to see if x-ray spectrometry turns up a lot of lead, though, like some of the contemporary counterfeits. What should a cast counterfeit look like after being struck over in a press?
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Moderator
  United States
16679 Posts |
I'm going to contact someone at the EAC. I'm fairly confident this is struck on something foreign. It's heavy.
swcoin.ecrater.com
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3253 Posts |
Edited by philadelphian 03/12/2013 4:55 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1227 Posts |
Disclaimer: I know absolutely ZILCH about colonials.
With that said, the Palatine immigration from Germany to America was quite large, with over 2100 immigrants settling in the New York/Pennsylvania/New Jersey area in 1709-1711, and there was a second wave of immigrants in 1717. Do any German coins from this time period match the weight of this mystery overstrike?
I also find the French and Indian War (our part in the Seven Years' War) in the present-day Midwest, between 1754 and 1763. The American part of the war began in the Ohio Valley, which--geographically speaking--is a spit's distance from Connecticut. This area was settled by both the French and Spanish. Do we have a weight match in either francs or pesetas?
I could probably keep hunting out other countries who claimed colonies in the present-day US at that time, but I think those were the "big three" most likely to have coinage circulating widely enough for something to get pulled and restruck.
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Moderator
  United States
16679 Posts |
I'm in the process of determining weights of any and all coins which were either brought here for use as currency in the Colonies or possibly, any copper coins brought over by Quakers or immigrants, which would include British as well as German, French, and Dutch coinage.
swcoin.ecrater.com
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1227 Posts |
vermontensium,
If you don't find a match there, look in Spanish coins. I know most of the Spanish settlements were in the southwest, but trade routes almost certainly existed and it's not out of the question (if I can get handed a one-baht coin at a cash register in Arizona in 2012 . . . . ). Even if there were no routes from New Mexico to Connecticut, a Spanish settler hands a coin to a French trader who hands it to another French trader who hands it to a Native who hands it to another Native who uses it to buy something from a Scotsman in Ohio . . . . and there you go, Spanish money in the northeast.
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Moderator
  United States
16679 Posts |
Exactly. Yeah, out here where I am (So. Cal), Spaniards were all over the place; Missions are the only evidence you need. Your theory is quite plausible.
swcoin.ecrater.com
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4897 Posts |
Finger crossed... 
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Replies: 26 / Views: 1,900 |