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 Replies: 12 / Views: 1,743 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1647-Solidu...8756?txnId=0I bought a lot of older Russian coins from this seller, and put in my chips on a whole bunch of Swedish Livonia silver coins from the early 17th century. I won most of them, the majority for $0.99-2.50. Most catalogs list these coins at $18+ in VF or higher--many of the coins I purchased appear to be XF or AU. The seller has outstanding feedback and was upfront about any replicas he had for sale, so I am pretty confident that these are genuine. Did I just luck out, or am I missing something here?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
9395 Posts |
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Did I just luck out, or am I missing something here? $4.00 shipping + 0.99 for the coin, so about $5.00 total. This isn't a bad price, since I see others in the US starting at about $7.00 or so. Maybe these things are pretty common and cheap in Latvia? |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
6130 Posts |
Even better--the seller combined shipping. $4 for the first two + $0.50 each additional was advertised, but he combined all shipping for $4 flat.
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Moderator
 United States
23731 Posts |
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Moderator
United States
34410 Posts |
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Maybe these things are pretty common and cheap in Latvia? Not sure about Latvia specifically, but yes, there are lots and lots of these guys. "If you climb a good tree, you get a push."
-----Ghanaian proverb
"The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed."
-----King Adz
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
560 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
Got these in the mail a few days ago. Here they are, mixed with the rest from the "Renaissance lot" thread coins:  Most are pretty rough and poorly centered, but a handful are absolutely stunning! Most are from Christina, but also Gustav Adolphus, Sigismund III, and free city of Riga. The other coins are copper solidii of Jan II of Poland, and a 6 groschen from Prussia. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
Also noticing the slightly off center coins, it appears that these coins were made by pressing a huge die into a "sheet" of silver, and then each coin cut out with a circular punch by hand. Is that more or less correct?
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Pillar of the Community
Russian Federation
5174 Posts |
What's the big coin at top left? Doesn't look like a solidus...
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
Haven't taken the time to figure that one out just yet. It's a heavily worn, wafer thin silver coin from about the same time period, at any rate. I had won a lot of misc. coins from the seller, including Russian, German states, Poland, more Swedish solidii, a billon 1 Öre and a couple mystery coins.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
807 Posts |
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Also noticing the slightly off center coins, it appears that these coins were made by pressing a huge die into a "sheet" of silver, and then each coin cut out with a circular punch by hand. Is that more or less correct? Where do you get that impression? The typical mediaeval coin was struck on a piece of silver cut from a sheet with shears, using two dies which were held together by hand. Good centering is therefore rare. What you describe, which was never done to my knowledge, would result in pieces with part of another impression intruding on one edge. There were experiments in the Renaissance period with producing coins by a rolling-mill technique, followed by punching- or cutting-out, which could produce such a result, but that's about as close as anyone has ever gotten. |
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Pillar of the Community
Russian Federation
5174 Posts |
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Where do you get that impression? The typical mediaeval coin was struck on a piece of silver cut from a sheet with shears, using two dies which were held together by hand. Good centering is therefore rare.
What you describe, which was never done to my knowledge, would result in pieces with part of another impression intruding on one edge. There were experiments in the Renaissance period with producing coins by a rolling-mill technique, followed by punching- or cutting-out, which could produce such a result, but that's about as close as anyone has ever gotten. To the best of my knowledge, this latter experiment (or something very similar) was, in fact, how the Livonia (and Riga) solidi were made. You can see a tiny piece of this "another impression" on the shiny '47 coin (just left of the middle). The recent "28 centuries" thread has another shiny '47 (of the Livonian variety), which has a much bigger intruding piece (even with traces of the lettering). |
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Valued Member
Lithuania
386 Posts |
All these coins of 17 century made using the rolling machine.
The rolling machine for minting coins that was based on the principle of the press was invented in 1550 in the Tyrolean town of Halle. It consisted of two shafts connected with a notched gear. Depending on the size the shafts had from 4 to 19 negative images of the obverse and reverse sides of the coin, so that the images chopped on the tape of the tsan after passing it in the machine. The appearance of this machine greatly accelerated the process of manufacturing and also improved the quality of the image on the coins. There was no more displacement of the picture after double or even triple blows that were so characteristic of the hammer gear coinage.
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Replies: 12 / Views: 1,743 |
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Posted 04/04/2016 12:30 pm
