Knowledge Is King?

Thanks for the overly kind, if unjustified kind words Nut.

The photos that I posted are not of a 19th century Morgan & Orr, but of a 20th century press of European design. The clock, (I mean the feeder assembly) is very similar though.

Okay, lets get started then Gene. I do wish that Russ could have been here to share insight, as one of the coins that I wanted to talk about belongs to him, unless there is another twohawks running around loose.

This all started and stopped a few months ago when I saw a photos in a post about a coin that I found to be interesting because it had the stereotypical seam around the edge, yet the obverse and reverse images indicated that the coin was authentic. I had initial thoughts about the creation of the seam and other aspects as I recall that were extremely silly and far fetched. I will keep looking for the post and paste a link to it if I can.

I did save one picture of it, and shared it with my buddy Roger B. Now Roger was one of the first people that I got to know when I started looking at coins and paper money almost a year and a half ago. I remember that we got into terrible arguments about how things happened, and I thought that this guy is the most arrogant person I have ever encountered. He found me to be amusing at best, and was always polite, courteous and gentlemanly despite my rude and vicious attacks. Anyway, we became quite close because I actually did greatly respect his knowledge of coins and history. It was sometime later that I found out that he was the foremost numismatic researcher alive today, well known author of coin books, and had already forgotten more than I would ever know about coins. So, who better to discuss the anomaly imaged below than him? I had initially thought that this might be caused by a cracked collar, but had reservations because the possible crack was just a little too straight.

The second photo, was supplied to me by Roger via a link to another forum (that he occasionally lurks to gather ideas for articles and books). After composing myself from my fit of rage for linking me there, we discussed the differences between the two coins and the possibilities, as well as the impossibilities of each. We arrived at total agreement as to the causes, but I thought that just to liven up the forum here, I might solicit thoughts of those here, as to what caused these two very different looking 'seams' (one straight, one not). Possibly there will be a few folks who will dismiss them both as counterfeits. First the coin of unknown owner:





Next, the coin that I believe is owned by Russ:

It is my belief that the 'seam' on the first coin was caused by the hole punch not being repositioned correctly between annealings. While the same possibilities existed with the hubbing of an obv/rev die, the effect on these dies would have been a doubled die, rather than what I envision on the collar.

The lower photo shows what I believe to be a cracked collar effect.

Yeah, sort of. Annealing was not an exact science, and temperatures were estimated by the color of the steel. The grain density of the ore, the temperature of metal, duration at that temperature, and the rate of cooling of the steel were all critical factors that turned out many times to be a hit or miss process. No two dies were created equal, and had individual identities and Achilles heels. Some were not suitable for prolonged use, some were, and those that were saw great amounts of wear and re-polishings. The more brittle dies cracked at clashings, the softer did not, but these softer dies took on clash marks from the harder dies that they were paired with.

In order to anneal a die every day, for ten days, would mean that the die would be taken out of the press 8 or 9 times and then have to be repositioned exactly after each annealing. Simple enough since the die would have a design depression left in it from the previous hubbing. Set the die on the hub, lock it into the press, retract the plunger, and strike. Same with the hole punch. but even easier, seat the punch into the circular outline left by the previous strike, lock into place, and strike again.

I'll tell ya Gene, I sure did not mean to get into the annealing thing , or much of the other stuff that we covered here. It was simply my intent to provide a head start on possible revisions for someone. You are well aware that I don't know the first thing about vams (the identification of the coins themselves, what the value or scarcity of them are), but I do know other things that other folks don't think twice about because they don't care about it. There is no profit to be made in the things that I know about, there is no sense of self satisfaction.

I thought that if someone knew that a certain 1887 P VAM contained the characteristics of a cracked collar, other examples of that particular VAM could be checked for the same characteristic. Some may have it, some may not (depending on when the collar was changed out). I do believe that this condition is VAM specific though. If I am correct, the later struck coins would show this more than the earlier stuck coins.

The same with the 1883 CC coin with what I believe is a punching abnormality. In this case though, the earlier struck coins would show his characteristic better as I might expect the collar to wear thereby diminishing the effect on later struck coins. All this based on what I believe to the the causes of these effects on these two coins. Then again, I could be totally wrong, and they may both be counterfeits (but I really don't think so).

Heh, heh.....Dave, unless you didn't bother to look at the obv / rev, I'll bet that there was not much doubt in your mind about the counterfeits actually being counterfeits.

Doubling and tripling is a result of hubbing rather than annealing.
Yes, I would have to agree that probably the edge of the coin is rarely scrutinized by most folks.
I can't really imagine a piece of the collar actually breaking off, but it is a possibility I guess. In such an event, I would suspect that the effect would be a huge blob of metal (like a Cud) on the edge of the coin. I have never seen or heard of such a thing, but I am still a novice when it comes to the actual coins themselves. As for whether such an event would have escaped the attention of the operator, my guess would be that it probably would.
Cuds actually are broken areas of either the obv or rev die, as the reeding on Cud coins is still intact.

Denticle impressions Gene? Denticle impressions? Yes you really are boldly stepping out on the platform. Very boldly indeed. I haven't even thought about them in many, many months now, but they are no mystery to me. I absolutely do 'know' exactly what caused them, and it was not any of the ridiculously ignorant excuses given by the "experts". You are still my bestest VAM buddy, but please don't get me started on a topic that I feel so fervently about.


Sorry for that Gene, I will regain my composure.

Are you saying that someone actually suggested that pieces of a broken collar are the cause of denticle impressions?

Few reply to your questions of causes of certain features because nobody knows or cares. The experts are experts in identification of die pairs, and there are quite a few folks who are amazingly good at it.

I am Okay now Gene, and you've got my interest meter pegging. So what are some of the other current theories on the causes of denticle impressions?

Is that the correct term? struck thru collar?, I'll keep my meager $76 bucks...
any way no ones really touched the denticle thing in a very long time...I always wondered, why the rim of the coin was not also indented and only the dentil's?seams like there should have been some obvious "arc" marks, yet only the dentiles are there?