Die Marks... Is This Common?

I agree with what your coin guy said.Although,it sounds a bit odd for die scratches to be on a proof die/coin. Any chance of posting good pics?
John1

sorry, the second picture has the scratched cover on it and possibly the 3rd one too. the only picture I know for sure that does not have a capsule cover over it is the first one. you cannot see any scratches with the naked eye, I could not see any with a magnifying glass either, but the coin shop guy had some kind of super close-up device to look at it with and that is what he told me.

yep, that was mine, I have been researching this medal for years with no solid results due to all the ommissions, errors, mis-understandings from everyone from private people to auction houses to Krause, so I finally decided to submit it and see if NGC would take a bite. I am not holding my breath. My last stop will be Anacs. I refuse to go with the lower-tiered companies because it seems some of them would certify a bent rusty penny as a proof 70 (ok, I am exaggerating a little). Maybe they have a source or book which I don't, or maybe they will just slab it and put whatever details on the label which are apparent... Country, weight, year. If they do certify it, I am going to write a book about my experiences. I doubt that many would be interested, but I have literally well over a hundred hours researching this medal (the medal is but one in a series of 18 WW2 leaders) which I have found more variations of it in Coin catalogs (bolivares, as in Venezuela) than Medals catalogs, but technically I consider it a medal. If NGC turns it down (altho they got plenty of examples in their catalogs with different weights), and if ANACS turns it down, I am going to officially give up and the world and myself will be a better place and person for it. I was hoping tho to get the mystery solved before I slipped on a banana peel next to a hole in the ground. Thanks for replying... Mike

Jadey, as I am sure you know, memories about murderous dictators fade over time. Not to get political, but we have essentially forgot 9/11, the horrors of WW2 and the attempt to wipe out an entire race and killer dictators. Hitler was only one of them, btw, this medal is only one of the 18 WW2 leaders addressed in the "Chiefs in the Second War" series.

This series also features Stalin, who killed plenty of his own people and especially senior military leaders during his purge just prior to WW2, which is one of the reasons why Russia did so lousy when Hitler turned on Stalin. In those days, signing a non-aggression or friendship pact with Hitler really meant that you were next!

Stalin was an allied with Hitler in regards to the German/Russia non-aggression pack signed just before WW2. After Hitler invaded Poland, Stalin went on a killing and land grab of his own on his side of the border, invading just not Poland but others and killing untold numbers of civilians and was only too happy to hand over the jews to Hitler. We should have declared war on Russia, but then we would have been in the awkward position of helping Hitler fight Stalin. But of course Hitler turned on Russia, as was his intent all the time and clearly spelled out in detail in his book, as Stalin was very familiar with. His position in the German/Russia pact was to buy some time so he could build up his military after he tore a lot of it down in the late 30's. So then we became buddies with Russia and helped Stalin.

We have a long, and problably needed, history of collaborating with murderous dictators...Stalin, Kaddafi (after he gave up his WMD programs but looked what happened to him later), Saddam (because he fought Iran) who was one murderous guy, killing his own by the busheload and others, and a handful of others. Yet these days and for some time already, Stalin, Mao, Lenin are lionized. Much of South America was sympathetic towards the Nazis, especially as they escaped the end of WW2 via the ratline Odessa. So it comes as no surprise that coins were minted of many of these fine folks, including Hitler, later as memories faded.

The irony is the fact that the 1957-1959 Hitler Venezuela medal (and of the other 17 leaders) were minted in GERMANY for Venezuela! In 1957 and 1958, all the leaders on both sides of the war were minted in BU gold bolivares, however, in 1959, it appears that only Hitler would be featured out of this same series and made it a proof. Go figure.

I am not sure what my point is, so I will stop rambling on. If I can my medal slabbed, I am going to do a victory dance. I will write an article on my experiences with the medal. Nobody will care, but that is not my goal. I could use the distraction because yesterday I managed to spill a cup of coffee on my other computer's keyboard and now it acts crazy of course. Talk about having one's day ruined!

thanks for the reply... mike

p.s. not ONE of the German people who paid up in full for their "people's car (the VW) as promised by Hitler to all of Germany's civilians prior to the war actually got one (Hitler turned the VW facility into a rearmament factory), and the autoban was built not for all the happy vacationing German civilians as they were told, but so that the German military forces could move quickly thruout the country.

So, we might call this the "Bad Hombres" series.

My dealer nor myself have heard (so far) from NGC or their coin conservation affilitate (NCS), so I take that as a good sign... maybe. I say maybe because I have heard that some who have submitted to PCGS just for grading have waited some 4-6 weeks, or longer. It could be that NGC or NCS have a backlog and mine is still in their "inbox". One interesting but plausible theory, supposedly backed up by Hitler himself's words, is that he did not want his image on any coins during the war years 1939-1945 UNTIL HE HAD WON THE WAR! As we all very well know, this did not happen, praise God or whatever higher power you may subscribe to, if any.

If you do see any coins with an image of Hitler on them between 1939-1945, they are either fakes or private issues or otherwise non-government currency commissioned by ardent Nazis or Hitler's admirers / collaborators during those years so that they could honor him in their own ways. This series was minted in Germany for a bank in Venezuela and had their gram weights stamped into the medals/coins or however you want to refer to them. Mine was somewhat unusual in that it does not even state the gram weight in the usual spot (right under the eagle's left talon where you see the initials "GR.", where is where all others in the 1958-59 years (there was a major redesign from the 1957 medals). The 1957 medals had the gram weight in several places on that sign of the medal. this is where Krause got the information in order to determine the bolivares value. So mine, not having the gram weight stamped in that big fat open obvious area immediately after the "GR.", just a blank area, makes it either a fake or some kind of one-off commemorative medal minted by Germany. I kinda doubt that it is a fake because it has been tested as 22.22K, same purity as in the other gold bolivares, plus I don't know of too many fakes in solid 22k gold. In any case, time will tell and I will post whatever the results here when they come in... mike