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 Replies: 32 / Views: 4,147 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2189 Posts |
Title 18 part 1 chapter17 deal's with coins. Say's almost exact same thing about coins so technically it is illegal.
Edited by jasper62
06/22/2016 12:29 pm
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
12437 Posts |
No, it is only illegal when a coin is altered or mutilated for fraudulent purposes. If any kind of alteration were illegal, souvenir penny press machines could not legally exist yet they are present at almost all tourist attractions.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
5828 Posts |
 Including government owned attractions... Heck, even the US mint has a penny press! |
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Moderator
 United States
189142 Posts |
Quote:
Title 18 part 1 chapter17 deal's with coins. Say's almost exact same thing about coins so technically it is illegal. No, because the adverb "fraudulently" is used as qualifier... Quote:
Whoever fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the mints of the United States, or any foreign coins which are by law made current or are in actual use or circulation as money within the United States; or
Whoever fraudulently possesses, passes, utters, publishes, or sells, or attempts to pass, utter, publish, or sell, or brings into the United States, any such coin, knowing the same to be altered, defaced, mutilated, impaired, diminished, falsified, scaled, or lightened— You would be right if they had omitted that adverb.  |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
Quote:
heck Hitler was even Times man of the year in 1938 Yes and we (The US) financially supported his eugenics program right up until the Poland invasion. (Yes, in the beginning the "Final solution" was bankrolled by the US government.) Edited by Conder101
06/22/2016 2:38 pm
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CCF Advertiser
United States
1533 Posts |
Story behind the coin.
Timmy Johnson was visiting Germany in 1939. As the son of a wealthy shipping magnate, his family was largely unaffected by the depression in the US. He was visiting Germany with a few million Marks in his pocket, needed to buy his meals and he noticed he had a nickel in his pocket. There was a politician that from Germany that was on the cover of Time magazine for some reason and people there were going around saying Heil to this guy, whoever he was. Timmy was staying in the hotel Regenstein and was bored so he carved the saying on the nickel and put it back in his pocket. When his family got home, he tossed it into his piggy bank and forgot about it until he was ready to go to college. It was 1949 and he broke the bank and started rolling up all the change. He found the nickel and was aghast. In the last 10 years, this politician had become a war criminal and anything referring to him was highly unpopular in the US. Tim didn't even think he could take it to the bank without someone saying something. So he kept it as a pocket piece until 1960, when he sold it to a Nazi memorabilia dealer in New York. That dealer had it in his case with a bunch of inflationary Marks and stamps until somebodies grandfather bought it and put it in his collection.
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New Member
 United States
26 Posts |
LOL. That's as likely as anything else, even ties in the iffy quality.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2189 Posts |
DOG PILE! Like the old neighborhood I grew up in as a kid, It was a lot of fun. I stand corrected
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Moderator
United States
189142 Posts |
Quote:
Story behind the coin. Sounds legit.  Quote:
DOG PILE! Like the old neighborhood I grew up in as a kid, It was a lot of fun. I stand corrected Sorry about that. I took so long to create my reply that I had not noticed the others who had posted first.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5208 Posts |
Looks counter stamped.
Yet the obverse doesn't show any flattening opposite.
The font is rather unique.
The spacing is indicative of hand counter stamping vs. engraving or prepared counter stamp.
On a Nickel with that many letters involved the stamps would have to be pretty small. I'm not sure who in the late 1930's / early 1940's would have access to a letter set of hand metal stamps. Nowadays you can go online or walk into a Harbor Freight but back then I would think you would have had to have worked in a tool and die shop or such to have access to said punches.
Your best clue (if you want to truly track down the source which will likely be to your grave) is the unique font used.
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New Member
United States
26 Posts |
I see that it is a pretty weird font now that you mention it. I've never seen an E quite like that.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
12057 Posts |
The font IS weird. It's very similar to 30s Monotype serif fonts, transitionals & slabs -- but the bidirectional vertical serif on the top right of the E's upper cross bar does not resemble common fonts of the era, except perhaps Perpetua, but even then Perpetua did not have a matching E serif, although the R is very similar!
I think this was hand cut, and the "extra" serif areas are an artifact/result of the cutting tool which was used. The metal does not show signs of "push" away from the lettering. Notice also that the serif lengths vary between the same letter.
Member ANA - EAC - TNA - SSDC - CCT #890 "Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done." -- Louis D. Brandeis |
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New Member
United States
26 Posts |
Wow, another good observation. Maybe the 'artist' had a set of tools that were not letters and simply created letters from them. Looks like the depth of the strike varies even within single letters.
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Rest in Peace
United States
18456 Posts |
Hmm , If someone can trace the font back to Germany ? Think of the possibility's !  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4418 Posts |
This counterstamping, the OP's coin, was awkwardly done with individual letter punches. As such, I suspect it was simply the product of the maker's whimsy. The maker may have been a Nazi sympathizer, or he may have made this a jest for some acquaintance. I strongly suspect that the stamping was done in the 1930's, before many folks really understood the dastardly intent of the Nazi movement. Had this coin been impressed by a single, logo punch, the production of a prepared die would then suggest that there was some genuine, at large, political intent. Over the years, I've seen some coins that have been stamped with a tiny swastika. These coins have included three or four Buffalo nickels, and the swastika has typically been centered upon the bison. This stamping may well have had some political intent, but I've yet to see any attribution as such. I do recall reading a few contemporary, 1930-40's, newspaper accounts of folks finding these counterstamped coins in circulation. (I often read old newspapers when researching counterstamps and tokens) While I suspect that these tiny swastikas MAY be Nazi-related, for a great many years prior, swastikas appeared on U.S. tokens quite simply as symbols of "good luck." It was Hitler's Nazis who demonized that ancient and historic symbol of power and good fortune. Regarding the font or letter style, I don't think it's weird. It's a font that was more commonly used in earlier times. Likely, the maker of the OP's counterstamped coins used an older set of punches. The use of simpler style block letters, without serifs, became increasingly prevalent in the late nineteenth and into the twentieth century. Edited by ExoGuy
06/23/2016 09:37 am
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Replies: 32 / Views: 4,147 |
First Page
Posted 06/22/2016 12:28 pm
