Well, if anyone stumbles across this post, maybe it will be helpful to another newbie like myself that doesn't have all of the general knowledge, reference books, microscopes, etc. I'm sure many of you old timers already sorted all of this out.
As Zurie mentioned, overlaying images was likely my best bet to attribute this coin, and really a must have capability for serious coin collecting, imo. I wanted something free and for my iPad. YouTube channel IOSHacker has a 3min video called Easiest Way To Overlay Images on iPhone or iPad. It worked great!
I had AU obverse images of LM-1 and LM-2 but no idea really what the differences were on the obverse and was struggling to get a definitive hit on the overlay of my worn out coin over either of the two reference images.
I decided to look for more images of high grade LM-2 coins. So went to PCGS and under 1801 H10C went to auctions to find the most expensive coins sold as they usually have significant information about any given coin. Bingo!
A PCGS MS66+ which sold for $144k on Heritage in 2020 had paragraphs of information with the key nuggets of information which helped expedite my quest to attribute this coin. One very obvious difference is the large die crack on early die state LM-2, which didn't help me with my worn coin. Two other points were helpful. First, the spacing between the B and E in liberty is wider on the LM-2. Second, bit of info states that stars 1-3 (bottom right) are close together. So now I knew what I was looking for.
However, given my smooth worn light gray coin, it was still really tough trying to get a definitive match. I adjusted the opacity of my coin back and forth as I was trying unsuccessfully to really see the two images well enough to line up for a perfect match.
I decided I needed to edit my coin's picture by adding reference points/lines on the image using the basic iPad photo editing tool which includes a ruler and markers.
In the first photo below you can see the revised image with blue lines bisecting multiple stars along with a few other reference lines to help line up the coin over the reference images. This worked great. Had I thought to add these sorts of references lines to begin with, I could have made the match without knowing in advance the differences between the two obverses. The 2nd image below is LM-2, which as you can see the blue lines match up perfectly. My coin is so light in color that it is just a haze at around 40% opacity relative to the reference coin, but the blue showed up nicely. The third image no matter what I tried just won't match. The third image I settled on lining up the date and stars to the left as best I could, leaving the other five markers clearly not matching to LM-1.
I realize that this is just one piece helpful in attributing a coin, it alone does not determine authenticity.
Anyway, I hope someone finds this helpful.
Posted 10/01/2024 12:33 am
