| 2000
| ScrapBook
Subjects
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Page
Index
Links
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Link:
"Smith's Leather" Medal Evolution
Link:
1793 Chain Cent...Sure Is NEAT!
Link:
1793 Cent Silver Overstrikes
Link:
What Does Our Engraver Bid For On eBay?
Link:
Practically Unique ANS Presentation Piece
Link:
Landis Bench Trial/Practice Piece
Link:
Wonder What's In This Bag?
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Enlargement scans available on WWW and ScrapBook CD-ROM.
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| 11/23
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Click on any image for Obverse
enlargement
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Initial Bust Trial Strike
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Enhanced Bust Trial Strike
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| 11/19
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Genuine 1793 Chain Cent
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1793 Chain Cent...Sure Is NEAT!
I found this neat chain cent on Roxanne Goldberg's personal website and
at first glance I thought I was looking at an early Gallery Mint Museum
Chain Cent. Immediately I was struck by the fact that it was the "with
periods/full AMERICA" variety. Then I wondered about the color...sort of
a bronze. Finally I realized there was no COPY stamp on the piece. WOW!
I'd love to have this in my GMM/Landis collection. THEN a thought struck
me...maybe this is a genuine chain cent...surely not...much too
beautiful. Roxanne wrote me back that this was indeed a genuine piece. I
hope to learn more specifics on this wonderful piece and, if I do so,
I'll post them here for all of you.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
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| 11/19
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Click on any image for enlargement
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Walking Liberty Half Dollar
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1793 Cent Silver Overstrikes
Ken Potter has also placed two neat silver overstruck Half Dollars on
eBay. Here is what Ken says about these two great specimens.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
Gallery Mint 1793 Cent "OverStrike" Struck on a...
1) Flipped Over Walking Liberty Half Dollar
2) 1953 Franklin Half Dollar
These Gallery Mint Reproductions of the 1793 Cent are Overstruck on
United States Half Dollars. The Walking Liberty Half Dollar is really
interesting as the dies used to strike this coin, struck the 1953
Franklin Half Dollar one strike earlier. Residual contaminants on the
Franklin half that were transferred to the die were then struck into
this coin resulting in a ghostly image of "1953" showing within the
feathers of the "understike" Eagle. Make no mistake - these are not
error coins, but fascinating pièces de caprice created at the whim of
the Gallery Mint several years ago for a collector that sold me his
collection. The word "COPY" appears neatly within the upper wreath.
These are really neat items for the collector of errors on coins where
such an error does not really exist.
EMail:Ken Potter...Sun, 12 Nov 2000 16:42:45
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1953 Franklin Half Dollar
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Additional 1793 Cent Silver Overstrikes
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| | Barber Half
| George V Half
| George VII Half
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Gallery Mint 1793 Cent "OverStrike" Struck on a...
1) Flipped Over 1907 Barber Half Dollar
2) Flipped Over Canada George V Half Dollar
3) Canada Edward VII Half Dollar
EMail:Ken Potter...Wed, 22 Nov 2000 19:23:43
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| 11/18
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Carved Hobo Tokens Recently Offered On eBay
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What Does Our Engraver Bid For On eBay?
In today's "Information Age" much of what we do in our private lives
becomes public information. My appologies to Ron Landis but I got
curious about what he found worthwhile bidding for on eBay considering
the fact that he creates such beautiful works-of-art in his own
facility. I should have known...other engraver's buffalo nickel
creations and some really NEAT ones I might add.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
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| 11/17
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Practically Unique ANS Presentation Piece
One of my favorite oxymorons. Any qualifier on "unique"! Almost
unique...virtually unique...practically unique...you get the idea.
Either something is unique or it isn't...plain and simple! Usually the
writer is trying to sell something and thinks the word "unique" will
raise the sale price. It just raises my eyebrows.
Anyway there were only two of these presentation pieces made. Clearly
the token was struck into the 1804 proof Dollar host specimen while it
was still in the collar because the dollar's edge lettering has been
almost obliterated. This is not a pièce de caprice special ordered by a
collector. It was created at Ron Landis' order as a presentation for the
ANS 51st Annual Coin Show. Much to my delight...they never got presented
and ended up back at the Gallery Mint Museum in their stock.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
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| 11/17
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Landis Bench Trial/Practice Piece
An interesting practice specimen created using one of GMM's Large Cent
planchets with die clip and lettered edge. Nothing earth-shattering but
a neat bench piece from the hands of the Master HIMSELF to add to my
growing GMM/Landis collection. Such items are normally discarded and
seldom preserved for future students/collectors. I LOVE IT! Note
the 1996 date stamped into the upper reverse. Of course, reverse and
obverse are REALLY arbitrary here so I picked the plainer side as the
reverse.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
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| 11/16
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Wonder What's In This Bag?
Yesterday I made a quick one day trip to Eureka Springs to pick through
Ron's RenFest material (Royal Mint stuff) that he created in the years
before the Gallery Mint Museum was established.
I was dumping out small plastic bags, that were so old you couldn't see
through the plastic anymore, expecting another dozen RenFest brass
medals. Out tumbled 12 1995 Concept dollars...took them to Ron and asked
what they were. He was astounded! They were his first trial pieces
created in the processing of making the 1995 Concept Dollars. Various
dies, various alloys, various strikes with/without collars, various edge
treatments (the edge lettering kept getting smashed by the collar so
they tried things like making the edge slightly concave so it
"straightened out" when it pooched out from being struck.)
There were three different obverse dies represented! Only one each of
the pieces shown here. The others were all alloy and edge experiments
for the final dies used in the issue. I felt like grabbing my coat and
bolting for the car when I opened the bag but obviously that was not an
option.
This die has "LIBERTY" on her headband and "IN GOD WE TRUST" as the
legend where "LIBERTY" is on the final issue pieces. Ron said that less
than 10 were struck and did not elaborate...BUT...when it came time to
price the pieces he charged me almost double the price of the second
pattern. I suspect because it is distinctly different from the final
issue pieces. Notice how much more hair Lady Liberty has on this piece.
This brass planchet has a "moon and stars" edge design which is a
left-over Royal Mint medal planchet.
This die has a plain barred headband, a larger date and has Ron's neat
CoinPress mintmark just below the date. When I asked how many were
struck Ron said; "Only a few." I asked; "Less than 10?" He said;
"Considerably less than 10...I'm suprised any survived." This bright
yellow brass planchet is plain edged and was struck without a collar so
is noticeably larger than the final issue pieces.
This die has stars on her barred headband and is the final issue die.
Ron has engraved an olive branch in the eagle's beak and engraved PEACE
on the mound below the eagle's feet. He said he was conceptualizing for
the design of the subsequent prototype dollar issues. This brass
planchet has the standard edge lettering of the final issue pieces.
Does anyone have other examples of
any of these pieces
...or... any other 1995 concept dollar
patterns?
For those of you who want to read about the various Concept and
Prototype dollars that follow these patterns check out Mitch's
webpage:
The New United States
Dollar Coin
Link:New U.S. Dollar
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
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