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 Replies: 9 / Views: 1,791 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2003 Posts |
Greetings all, I am new to this forum so please forgive me if I posted this in the wrong place. I am trying to find information on the thickness of bust series coinage and Seated Liberty coinage. I see plenty of specs for diameter and weight but nothing on thickness. Need thickness of halves, quarters, dimes and Half Dimes from both the capped bust series and the seated series. All help is greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1613 Posts |
Welcome to the forum. A quick search turned up nothing on the pre-clad coinage, nor was there a mention in my copy of the Overton book which is strange as it deals exclusively with the Bust halves. But here's the current list, all denominations. https://www.usmint.gov/learn/coin-a...ecifications ANA member - PAN Member - BCCS Member There are no problems only solutions - the late, great John Lennon
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
2003 Posts |
Thank you Ballyhoo for the information. I already have all of that info though. I had to search the internet still to find the thickness specs for most of the non modern coins. Only thing I still haven't been able to find is the thickness of Bust and Seated coins. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5825 Posts |
Thickness for the coins you mentioned doesn't mean much unless you're dealing with MS or AU coins.
Circulation wear makes that figure less than accurate.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4233 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2003 Posts |
Thank you kbbpll, That is wonderful information. The reason I asked is because I am attempting to form a data base for reference while measuring, weighing, and trying to authenticate my coins as a way to combat the flood of counterfeit coins that seem to have flooded the market these days. Back in the good old days I may have encountered a bogus coin occasionally. These days I have to first suspect everything as counterfeit until I can prove to myself otherwise. I discovered a counterfeit Trade dollar that had be sitting in my collection for over 30 years. After weighing it and measuring it, the coin was under weight by .4 grams and the diameter was under by only .2 mm. Then I conducted a specific gravity test and the result was for that of copper. I hated to do this but confident of my testing, I filed an area of the reeded edge only to reveal copper. Counterfeit proven! So you see that all measurements do matter in drawing a red flag to a particular coin. By the way, I am wondering if you have any data regarding loss of weight as a coin wears, particularly with capped bust halves. I have a VF buster that weighs 13.35 grams and a F buster that weighs just 13.04 grams. An unworn Unc or AU should weigh 13.48 grams. Thanks again for your courteous reply. |
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Moderator
 United States
188091 Posts |
 to the Community! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4233 Posts |
I figured it involved detecting counterfeits. I know with Morgans they get the weight and diameter close to spec by making them thicker. I assume the thickness spec is at the rim but I don't know for sure. I don't know how accurate measuring devices are. For example the difference between the Half Dime and dime is .25 mm which is a fairly tiny amount, and as @kanga says circulation wear is a factor. I guess it's one more measurement to check. On the 13.04g weight versus 13.48g spec, that's only 3% light so it seems reasonable for an F coin to lose that much. I've seen people say up to 10% isn't unusual but I'm not aware of hard data on it. |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
5666 Posts |
I've wondered that myself. I know that well-circulated rolls of Mercury dimes stack significantly shorter than uncirculated rolls, perhaps by 5% or so, and I would guess that correlates with weight. And I found this in an article about the weight of circulated silver coin bags: "To test, we took 10 Mercury dimes that were extremely worn (where you could no longer see the ridges on the edges of the coins), and weighed them. They should have weighed 25g total if new (2.50g each); they actually weighed in at 22.8g (2.28g each). This was on a scale accurate to .1g. Dividing 22.8 by 25.0 shows us that they now weigh 91.2% of their original weight. Multiplying 723.38 (the original pure silver content of a $1000FV bag of 90% pure coins) by 91.2% results in 659.7 ounces. The good news is that with the bag that we found those in, a random sample of 20 coins weighed 48.6g, or 2.43g each, or 97.2% of their original weight (or 703oz for a $1000FV bag). That's a bit lower than average, but not terrible. We then tested some Walking Liberty halves, picking out 10 of the most well worn ones out of several hundred. These weighed 117.7g (11.77g each), compared to the 12.50g they should have weighed. That's 94.16% of the full weight, or almost 6% short of the original weight. That would be just 681.1 troy ounces for a $1000FV bag. The good news is that a random sample of 10 coins from that bag weighed 122.5g, or 12.25g each, just 2% short of the full weight when new, for 709oz for a full bag. And those coins looked pretty well worn (but most had the full rims)." I would guess that well-circulated Bust halves would be similar to circulated WLHs. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2003 Posts |
Thank you all for your input. the thickness measurements I am collecting are just another tool in the arsenal of Counterfeit Detection. You are correct that this measurement probably doesn't matter much on well worn coins such as Barber quarters and Mercury dimes. But if a thickness measurement is thicker than specifications on a higher grade example, that would set of a red flag. Counterfeiters often have to make there product thicker than normal to compensate for the weight of the base metal it contains yet still retain a diameter close to specs. Case in point are modern Silver Eagles. A genuine one measures 2.7mm at the rim and 2.4 mm on the face and measures 40.6mm diameter. The bogus ones I have seen are still very close in diameter, perhaps off by .2mm, however the thickness at the rim is often 3.0mm (only 0.3mm thicker). That doesn't seem like much of a difference but it is. Just .2 smaller from the diameter of the big number isn't much of a concern but .3mm difference from the smaller number (thickness)is a big difference. All of this would sure be easier if I just invested in an electronic verifier but they cost $1200 and not practical for the average collector like myself so I am stuck with the more tedious task of weights, measures, and specific gravity |
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Replies: 9 / Views: 1,791 |
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Posted 03/21/2021 6:47 pm
