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Subjects
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Page
Index
Links
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Link:
Gallery Mint Museum BEP Logo/Seal
Link:
Ron Landis Business Card
Link:
Gallery Mint Museum Dollar Prototypes
Link:
1996 Holiday PEACE Medal
Link:
1796 16 Star 25c GMM strikes
Link:
The "NC-7" HalfCent Copies
Link:
1793 "Strawberry Leaf" WreathCents
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Enlargement scans available on WWW and ScrapBook CD-ROM.
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Gallery Mint Museum BEP Logo/Seal
I have been told that these were printed on the Bureau of Engraving and
Printing's web press using BEP green ink and BEP paper. Additionally I
was told "only a dozen or so exist."
Can anybody give us any specifics on this interesting 20mm by 12.5mm
impression?
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
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Most of these were hand pulled here at GMM on an intaglio press I built
in 1987. There are less than 10 that were printed on a BEP spider press
(not web press) at the ANA convention in Denver a few years back. The
ones printed at the BEP demonstration are much better quality than the
ones I printed. Most of these were given to special friends, but I still
own one of them. Ron Landis...Tue, 01 Aug 2000 13:19:59
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Ron Landis Business Card
Maybe we can get Ron to tell us the where, when, etcetera about this
11cm by 8cm business card.
Another BEP product?
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
None of these were printed by BEP proof pressman. We still have the
plate, but haven't printed any in quite a while. Ron Landis...Tue, 01 Aug
2000 13:21:26
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Gallery Mint Museum Dollar Prototypes
This is what I currently know, some of which was confirmed by Ron
Landis, other information from the Coin Coalition:
Flowing Hair 1995: 1,371 pieces struck. First prototype of
concept dollar, incused words on rim. (Shown at right. - vrw)
Flowing Hair 1998: 130 pieces struck. Produced for Mint
Directors and media to promote the Peace 2000 concept. Most were
distributed at the ANA New York convention at the COTY awards ceremony.
Statue of Liberty 2000 (11 Ray): Less than 20 pieces
struck.(1)
The 11 ray statue design was a hand cut die produced in days to
make the deadline for the congressional hearing.
Statue of Liberty 2000 (13 Ray): Less than 100 pieces
struck. 11 ray die cleaned up in the positive, and used to punch the
main device into the more finished 13 ray version. Both styles were
distributed to Congress.
Flowing Hair 2000: Same as the piedforts currently offered
for sale but normal thickness. GMM did not give any info on this item.
Was told by Coin Coalition that these were also distributed to Congress
and the media to feature the reverse design for the dollar coin.
Liberty at 3/4 Profile: 47 pieces struck in piedfort
thickness. A few were sent to Michael Castle's office, a few were given
out to people at the Dollar Coin Design Advisory Committee but were
never really promoted by GMM or Monetary Policy committee.
Flowing Hair 2000 Piedfort: 2,500 presentation pieces
struck and sold to the public.
Statue of Liberty 2000 (13 Ray) Piedfort: 2,500
presentation pieces struck and sold to the public.
One thing I am still looking for is
What are the mintage numbers on the 2000 Flowing Hair Liberty model
dollar?
Not the piedfort sold to collectors but the thin version. Phillip
Barnhart...Sun Jul 30 2000 16:33:08
(1)
Subsequent mintage information indicates the following:
2000
StatueOfLiberty PrototypeDollar 11rays
Closed
Brass Unc. 55-70
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1996 Holiday PEACE Medal
This is a direct quote from the greetings sent out by GMM with the PEACE
medal:
This piece was created for our special friends of Gallery Mint Museum as
a token of appreciation for support and/or assistance through the past
year.
We had a few extra dies that were not centered correctly for a full
reproduction, but worked out nice for this "Peace Dollar" of a different
variety.
The obverse has twelve stars to represent the twelve days of Christmas
for a lack of a better idea for a holiday tie-in. It is dated 1996 and
reads "PEACE".
The reverse differs from the small eagle reverse it was patterned after.
The message reads "UNITED STATE OF MERRIMENT" and the olive branches
were replaced with holly.
Since we are using the same edges as in our reproduction (HUNDRED CENTS
ONE DOLLAR OR UNIT) we opted to use the copy stamp to easily identify it
as something other than a legal tender coin.
These are struck in coin silver and mintage will be limited to under one
hundred total. These will not be offered for sale.
We hope you enjoy this medallic holiday card, and wish you the best for
the coming new year.
Someplace I have seen a mintage figure of 85 pieces. I thought it was in
one of the GMM publications but I simply can't find the reference.
Where was the mintage of the "PEACE" dollars published?
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
I found it all by myself! :-)
In the July 1997 Gallery Mint Report, on page 4, in
Auction News it says; Based off
the Draped Bust Dollar design, this is a holiday gift we produced to
give to some of our friends. A total of 85 were
released.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
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1796 16 Star 25c GMM strikes
The 15 and 16 Star 1796 50c GMM strikes are still being offered by GMM.
I just learned that their 25c strikes were inadvertently done the same
way. Cliff has two and I have three of the 16 Star specimens. I am
wondering
How many 16 star 25C specimens were struck?
For those of you who may care I provide the following: I studied my 25c
specimens and found four obverse and four reverse dies.
D.Osburn Pocket Pieces:
2 - 16Star Obverse DieA with Reverse DieA
1 - 16Star Obverse DieA with Reverse DieB
1 - 15Star Obverse DieB with Reverse DieB
First purchase from GMM Sep.1997:
1 - 15Star Obverse DieC with Reverse DieC
Second purchase from GMM Sep.1998:
1 - 15Star Obverse DieD with Reverse DieD
Third purchase from GMM Apr.2000:
4 - 15Star Obverse DieD with Reverse DieD
The differences between dies are obvious but a bit difficult to put into
words...guess I could at some point if anybody really cares.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
I don't know off hand what the final figures were for the 16 star
quarters, but it was an embarrassing figure. Around 1200 of these were
minted and sent out before one of our collectors actually counted the
stars and discovered the error.
The same thing happened when we made the proof 1796 dollar repros. We
produced about 52 pieces that had only 14 stars. The error was caught
by our photographer. Only about 40 pieces were sent out, and we sent
them a notice of the error and offered free replacement but got only one
back. The other folks seemed to be happy getting the rare variety, and
went ahead and purchased a second example with 15 stars. Ron
Landis...Sun, 30 Jul 2000 11:59:06
I don't know how much help the four closeups on both obverse and reverse
dies will be to y'all but I did them anyway as a trial run. In the Sept.
1998 Gallery Mint Report, on page 4, in New master
dies created for latest Quarter and $1 repros it says; The quarter dollar was the first piece of the set, and
has been somewhat of a jinx for us from the beginning. Most of the
problems stemmed from improperly hardened dies that collapsed. Other die
varieties developed cuds, and one 16 star version was created by sheer
stupidity. Although this has been fun for some of our die variety
collectors, it has been an ongoing source of aggravation for us here
with dies lasting under 100 strikes many times. Our engraver, now being
more familiar with Draped Bust coinage, has decided to give another go
at it starting from scratch - literally. Completely reworked starting
with new master dies, the latest die varieties are more accurate, and
with better eye appeal than our earlier attempts. We sent the dies to
our accountants, and they verified the new dies have the proper number
of 15 stars. So I feel confident that the four obverse and
four reverse dies illustrated here are assuredly just the tip of the
iceberg...makes it all more interesting to collect...Aye?
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
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The "NC-7" HalfCent Copies
I have a Xerox copy of an article entitled; Recreating the 1797
Half Cent Over NC-7 Spoiled Cent. The page, #57, has a title at
the top left corner; The "NC-7" Copies. Can anyone tell
me
What publication is this article from and what date was it published?
The author is not credited but it was clearly someone at GMM.
The illustrations in this fine article are:
Method 1: Half Cent over "Spoiled Cent"
1)
Off-center "Spoiled Cent",
2)
Planchet cut from "Spoiled Cent",
3)
Waste after cutting Half Cent from "Spoiled Cent",
4)
Planchet cut from "Spoiled Cent" and rimmed, and
5)
Finished product Half Cent struck over "Spoiled
Cent" stock.
(Shown at right. - vrw)
Method 2: Cent over Half Cent
6)
Cent dies struck over Half Cent and
7)
Cent over Half Cent cut and rimmed.
The text is as follows:
Under a microscope, I also noticed a few other clues that further
convinced me the Half Cent planchet was cut from a spoiled Cent. On the
reverse, the leaves in the wreath of the Cent curl slightly around the
edge of the coin, indicating this was the side that went through the
hole of the cutting die, leaving the sharp edge of the planchet on the
obverse. In my opinion, this is why the upsetting is more prominent on
the obverse.
I also made one other observation that is not so convincing, but should
be pointed out. The edge lettering on the thick portion of the planchet
runs straight and true, but then suddenly runs off the edge through the
Cent portion and opposing area, showing the planchet was thinner in this
area and ran into the area of least resistance, namely, the two opposing
corners of the edge dies, forming a beveled edge in this area, cutting
off half the lettering.
We see this effect at the Gallery Mint Museum whenever we run a planchet
that is too thin for a given set of edge dies. This in itself is not
uncommon on 1796 Half Cents. Walter Breen speculates this was caused by
warped dies and partially due to too thin a planchet. I question the
warped die theory, since all edge dies must be a rather substantial
piece of steel and the Half Cent edge dies are somewhat short as edge
dies go. My experience leads me to believe that what little warping
might occur in the hardening of such a piece of steel would not cause
such a radical effect on a planchet.
We went ahead and tried to reproduce the NC-7 using two different
methods (see examples illustrated here). (Shown in the
original article and described in detail above. - vrw)
Although there are many other variables that come into play, basically,
we were able to reproduce the same clarity of both impressions using
both methods, a feature on the original that makes this coin's striking
sequence so difficult to figure out. We were also able to keep most of
the coins we struck very round, another confusing feature of the
original. Not all of them displayed this sort of balance, however. In
both methods, we came up with examples that displayed characteristics of
each strike sequence.
Of the 31 Cent over Half Cent pieces we produced every one showed flat
fields all the way off the edge, sometimes showing remnants of the Half
Cent date flattened out, sometimes bulging out in that area, but never
showing a ghost of the Half Cent's bust over the Cent's bust. Only two
pieces made this way showed very slight remnants of the Half Cent's
dentils, a characteristic visible on the original coin.
We made 24 other examples using a method of cutting the planchet from a
pre-manufactured "spoiled Cent" and we found results that resembled the
appearance of the original coin. In all cases, the upsetting was clearly
visible as on the original. Our rimming was a little heavier, so the
final strike shows more dentils than can be seen on the original, but
nevertheless the copies made this way show dentils consistently. Also,
on many of the pieces created this way the slight impression of the Half
Cent bust is visible on the high points of the Cent bust, a diagnostic
on the original not visible on any of the copies made using the other
sequence (i.e., Cent over Half Cent).
It has been suggested that the off center strike that first occurred may
have been the reason why the NC-7 die did not last long. Although this
is certainly not a good thing for dies to go through, it is something
that all dies endure at one time or another when a mechanical planchet
feeder is in use. A good solid die, properly hardened and tempered,
should be able to take this kind of abuse. If the die did break on this
strike, it is more likely due to a hidden fracture in that particular
bit of steel. Our dies managed to survive all right even though we hit
them full strength over 100 consecutive times.
I enjoyed the challenge and thrill of being able to spend some time with
this coin and to try to figure out this technical puzzle. This is how I
get my kicks and is what makes error coins so interesting.
I LOVED this detailed article even though I don't collect original large
cents. The fact I was able to purchase the entire sequence of specimens
that are illustrated in the article, except for number
7), added substantially to my
enjoyment! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. -
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
This article was in a Stack's auction of the John Whitney Walter
Collection that took place May 4, 1999. Stack's may still have copies
of this catalog. I have the honor of receiving a personalized hard back
copy signed by Mr. Walters, AKA "Mr. 1796" Although he sold his
fantastic collection, he still owns proof and unc. Gallery Mint sets. We
like to think he "upgraded". :) Ron Landis...Sun, 30 Jul 2000 11:59:06
As for the last example of the error set "Cent over Half Cent cut and
rimmed".
(Number 7) - vrw)
There was only one of these made. It is so NOT like the original coin,
that it was discounted immediately as an example of how this error could
have happened, so no others were made. Ron Landis...Thu, 29 Jun 2000
10:06:57
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1793 "Strawberry Leaf" WreathCents
In the December 1995 Gallery Mint Report, on page 6, in
Gallery Journal it says; Strawberry Leaf Wreath Cent Reproduction -- The four
(4) reproductions were minted November 3, 1995. The dies were cancelled
the same day.
What does it mean "four reproductions"?
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
Only 4 pieces were struck with the Strawberry Leaf variety. These were
given away in a drawing to 4 people. Ron Landis...Mon, 24 Jul 2000
12:30:22
Ah! Four specimens NOT four die varieties. Thanks Ron! In the May 1996
Gallery Mint Report, on page 2, in Strawberry Leaf
Giveaway Winners it says;
The winners are Stanley Prazer from Pennsylvania, Jackson Hinzman from
Alaska, and Barry Beavers and J.F.Dancer, Jr., both from Alabama.
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