An Odd Pair Of Portrait Eight Reales

Interesting thread.




How about so-called "belly dancer" tokens?

http://goccf.com/t/298406

Of much greater numismatic value are the pendants made from coins from historic events that should never be forgotten.

One example: the siege coins, made out of necessity in the 16th century when walled towns and cities were sieged, sometimes for a year or longer. The local authorities minted special coins (mostly silver, sometimes copper, tin, lead in Leyden even paper) to pay the garrison that protected the city against the enemy.

Table silver was a common source for this emergency money. These were times of hardship. Leyden successfully defended until the city was relieved in October 3 1574 and kept the best siege coins as memory from difficult times. Quite a few were mounted in pendants and that is why they still survive until today.

The picture below is from a 18th century drawing of a 1574 Leyden 28 stuiver (taler) ( Rijksmuseum Amsterdam)



for more information about the Leyden siege see: :http://www.coinsweekly.com/en/Archi...id=80&type=a

@swamperbob

thanks for adding an interesting new example.

The American use of coin concho seems indeed similar to the fashion of the Dutch fishermen of the 17th-19th centuries. Using big (and small) coins for belts can still be found on internet shops, also in Japan. It is known since when coin conchos have been used in the US?

Your observation of the mismatch between the decribed thaler-like Dutch or Spanish coins and the size of the adults on the pictures is correct. Although there is a clear secular trend of human height (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16757103) the Dutch concho's on the pictures above are clearly bigger than a ducaton or portrait 8R.
In fact, as this fashion evolved, "the bigger, the better" was part of a signal of wealth and social status. So after the middle of the 19th century, the a cheap pair was a set of two Wiliiam III Rijksdaalders, but the more valuable Dutch "broekstukken" were produced by silver smiths from bigger silver plates, often concave like the US conchos. Below are two examples that can be found among others in the "Dutch Open Air Museum"
http://data.collectienederland.nl/s...broekstukken


Actually, this odd pair of 8R brought me to the CCF where I read your interesting comments about counterfeits and numismatic frauds. In fact, I am not sure this is a pair of original Mexican strikes. The previous owner bought this set on a Dutch auction of antiques & small silver in 1993, so it is at least 25 years old. Die characteristics seem not suspicious, but I am an amateur not an expert. There are numerous small elevations on the surface of the Charles IV coin between the letters CAROLUS, maybe caused by the attachment of the clips. Two overlaps are present on the edge of each coin. Total weight is 57 gram, but with the clips attached exact measurements of weight and SG make no sense.

Axel, 1842 diam 6,9 cm; weight 117.3 gram Nederlands Openluchtmuseum 0180-HM.4605



Zuid-Beveland, 1860-1887 diameter 9.2 cm weight 140.4 gram Nederlands Openluchtmuseum 0180-HM.2286

swamperbob

The source from the two examples of large silver "broekstukken" shown above is not an auction or private seller but the Digital Collection Nederland, supported by the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (the Dutch official agency for cultural history). I understand your concern for the date 1842, given the Roman date MDCCXI on the two plates. The webpage gives description of the origin of this piece that can be translated as follows Silver pair of trouserpieces made in 1842. These trouserpieces were worn by a boy or man in Axel until WWI.

Unless they made a big error of judgment, we can assume that these pieces were not made after WWII. On the other hand, 1842 is too precise given the fact that the silversmith is unknown in this case, whereas for other items in the collection the maker is known. Given these doubts I have asked Digital Collection Nederland the about the evidence that made them decide to date this piece at 1842. One tends to believe that the information provided about pieces in public collections is correct.

http://data.collectienederland.nl/p...0180-Z.10-78

For the pair of 8R: your hypothesis may be right; I will search a bit more in this strange niche of the numismatic world and pay attention to clips on items from the 19th century. If the clips are modern, one could wonder: Would someone be so stupid to ruin a pair of original 8R in the 20th century? If the pair of 8R is a modern numismatic fraud, all details would fit, including the point I wasted some money on a worthless item.

I agree the piece does look like some form of traditional design. Most of these traditional jewelry designs tend to degrade over time. A comparison of the object buckle is clearly very degraded compared to the 1912 dated item.



I think this demonstrates that the designs of the turn of the century had degraded by the time the piece in question was produced. The comparison of the Rider's body is even more extreme.



I suspect a really recent forgery with forged jewelers marks.

It is obvious from the picture of the pair of coins last posted that they are casts of an already slightly degraded type. They lack the clarity of a struck coin and the minor details are starting to merge. In addition, as you point out, the outer rings are out of place on screw press struck coins.

I see no copper on the surfaces. I believe you are wondering if they may be silver plated copper. You need to be aware that casts are not normally layered as if plated. Casts can be silver/mercury "gilded" but in those cases, a meniscus is usually present at horizontal to vertical transitions. Any form of silver wash is unlikely as well for the same reason. Both tend to wear off of high points easily.

Silver plated over copper using electricity could not date before the 1840s. The procedure was not industrialized until that time. A few experimental pieces of copper plate on silver were made accidentally prior to 1840 but the reverse seems not to have been possible.

Silver plate of the Sheffield type is older than electroplate. In that case the surface silver can be alloyed to match the percentage of silver in genuine coins. Sheffield plate is created by hot welding silver layers over an ingot of copper. After bonded the three layer ingot can be rolled to thin it to a small fraction of the original size. The silver and copper work as if they were a unit and the silver layer can be thinned to a few thousandths. The process dates to 1770 as a single sided plating and a few years later for two sided plate. The edge needed treatment to cover it separately. The first use of a silver ribbon to cover the edge occurred in 1785. After that point the method was widely used.

A cold bonding of silver foil to a copper core was known from antiquity and can be achieved during the strike of a coin. It was rarely used until the late 1770s because the foils was easily destroyed and poorly bonded.

Using the dates of the various forms of silver plating is helpful to determine if the rest of the item makes sense.

Object Z.14_69 in the same collection looks like another pair of counterfeited ducatons (dated 1765, 1790).

Impression from the photo's is that an inner plate was attached by the counterfeiters to two outer plates that have the "degenerated" ducaton silver rider; details are poor as in the other pair






higher resolution images online:
http://www.collectiegelderland.nl/o...werp-Z.14-69

swamperbob

I agree with your idea that also the second pair of ducatons are casts. As far as I can see, the objects 0180-Z.29-65 and Z.14_69 match well as they are the only pieces in this collection based on cast counterfeited provincial 18th century ducatons. There are other pieces with coins that look genuine, but these were made in the 17th century, using different techniques in different regions (Bunschoten and Groningen) than the Volendam area. See example on photo below and photo of other example in the beginning of this thread.

The short synthesis is that the rich man jewelry of this kind in the second half of the 19th century was based on big silver plates, that have nothing to do with real coins. The two pairs of cast counterfeit ducatons made after 1850 in Volendam do not match with this evolution and may be the alternative for someone less wealthy.

Therefore, there are two possibilities
A) these pieces were made by the local silversmith as kind of jewelry and have nothing to do with coins
B) these pieces were counterfeits that could not be exchanged for new money when the old monetary system was replaced.

It seems of interest to consider B, and I consider A less likely.
Indeed, after the French occupation (Napoleontic period), the Netherlands became a kingdom with one centralized mint and silver pieces solely based on a decimal system and the guilder. This means that provincial large silver pieces (ducatons, florins, daalders minted by the seven different provinces) were gradually removed from the circulation to be replaced by new coins. According to the literature (ref 1-3), the final phase of this replacement took place between 1842 and 1849, i.e. not long before the two pairs of "Klepstukken" above were made. It seems conceivable that the authorities organized the exchange on basis of visual inspection, so that old silver coins that looked OK could be exchanged into new types. This must have been a filtering system for obvious counterfeits.

So if you were from Volendam where "Klepstukken" were part of clothing tradition and you were in possession of these false ducatons that could not be exchanged, the logic would be to convert them to "Klepstukken". Perhaps pieces from a larger area in the Netherlands found their way to this traditional industry. In this sense, the two counterfeit pairs of the Digital Collection Nederland, (Openluchtmuseum.nl) seem quite interesting.

References
1. Dr. H Enno Van Gelder "De Nederlandse Munten" (1970) p171-172
2. A. Vrolik, Verslag van het verrigte tot herstel van het Nederlandsche muntwezen van 1842—1851, 1855;
3. J. Schulman, Handboek van de Nederlandsche munten van 1795—1945, 1946.

a pair of Broekstukken (Groningen, after 1785) using genuine ducatons