| 2002
| ScrapBook
Subjects
|
Page
Index
Links
|
Link:
Watching A Die Come Apart
Link:
At GMM "PROOF" Means Dies NOT Condition
Link:
Keep A Sharp Lookout For Treasury Agents!
Link:
A Small Hoard Of Adam Kelley Creations
Link:
[ Gone Missing! ]
Link:
No Question About It!
Link:
[ Locomotives On One Ounce Silver Rounds ]
Link:
Rolled By Water Power
Link:
[ Rolled By Horse Power ]
Link:
This Isn't Supposed To Happen!
Link:
[ ScrapBook Visits Continue To Rise... ]
|
|
Enlargement scans available on WWW and ScrapBook CD-ROM.
|
|
| 4/30
|
-
Watching A Die Come Apart
I hope y'all remember the description of the circumstances surrounding
the discovery in February of 2002 of a cracked 1794 obverse die that I
provided in SBsubject
Link:
One Of Two Cracked Die 1794 Dollars.
If you don't then I suggest you pause a moment and follow the provided link to
understand what I am rambling on about here. I'm not going to repeat all that
initial description here. I'll wait for you while you go read it.
Welcome back! So... the latest news! On 13 April 2002 my fishing buddy
Kenny and I made a quick trip to Eureka Springs. The sole purpose of our
trip was to get a series of strikes off the broken 1794 dollar obverse die.
Timothy paired the first two 1794 dies and went to work. The first specimen
struck (#3) showed the same CUD movement that the piece Ron kept (#2) from
the February 2002 run. You can see the top edges of "TY" on the top surface
of the BreakPointCUD in the scan shown here on your right. None of the
subsequent strikes showed this feature. They all had smooth unblemished
CUDs because the die fragment simply fell off after the first strike (#3)
of the run. Ron kept one of those strikes (#6).
When I returned home and studied my new acquisitions I found that the
February 2002 pair of strikes had been done using the new 1794
reverse die "with berry." So... I have two unique pieces, Cracked&Berry
(#1) and BreakPointCUD&NoBerry (#3) ...and... Ron has one unique piece,
BreakPointCUD&Berry (#2). All remaining strikes were FinalCUD&NoBerry.
If you are viewing this GMM ScrapBook page from our CD-ROM then you
can view six nice SUPER SIZED scans of the
Links:Cracked Dollar&reverse,
Links:BreakPoint CUD Dollar&reverse or
Links:Final CUD Dollar&reverse.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
| 1794 Dollar Obverse Dies |
1794 Dollar Reverse Dies |
1) No stars with short hair curls.
2) Stars with short hair curls
and 1794 far from left star.
3) Stars with long hair curls
and 1794 close to left star.
|
1) No berry below A of STATES.
2) Berry below A of STATES.
|
|
|
|
| 4/29
|
1795 Half Eagle ...
Uncirculated ... NOT a PROOF!
-
At GMM "PROOF" Means Dies NOT Condition
Ron Landis once told me something to the effect that GMM had caused
themselves lots of difficulties by being too good at striking
recreations of uncirculated coins... particularly their gold coins.
So many of their uncirculated gold creations are so perfect that
they are readily mistaken for Proofs!
Shown above (please forgive the reflections in the plastic holder that
the Seller captured when he scaned this specimen) is a recent purchase
I made off eBay where the Seller described the piece as a PROOF in
spite of the fact he "couldn't find" the GMM insert with the proof
number stamped on it. The presence of a GMM coinflip insert with
PROOF and a serial number stamped on it is the only way to be assured
that a GMM creation is a proof unless you know a lot about GMM's dies
themselves. In this case, the Seller left me feedback on my eBay
purchase saying I was confused about this specimen. :-(
Of course any Seller has a vested interest in saying a specimen
being offered is a proof since that makes it rarer and generally should
bring higher bids on eBay. This is certainly not the first time I have
encountered this precise same situation. In fact the Seller of this gold
piece was not nearly as emphatic as an earlier Seller I encountered who
became QUITE AGITATED when I tried to tell him his specimen was
not a proof. In that case I just gave up trying to discuss the subject
with him.
It is true that the differences between the 1795 Half Eagle uncirculated
and proof dies are definitely subtle. In the scan immediately to your left
are examples of the uncirculated (LEFT) and proof (RIGHT) die details. The
95 is high on the uncirculated and low on the proof obverse dies. The sprig
leaves are longer on the uncirculated and shorter on the proof reverse dies.
By the way... it took many months but all this finally answers the question
I asked in November of 2000...
Link:Will The Real Proof Please Stand Up? It
turns out that my original purchase of a 1795 Half Eagle was indeed a
proof specimen which is a good thing since I paid quite a premium for it.
Unfortunately I paid the Seller of the above uncirculated specimen more
than I should have but all that is water under the bridge now. If you are
viewing this GMM ScrapBook page from our CD-ROM then you can view two nice
large pictures of the
1795 Half Eagle Proofs
Link:ONE and
Link:TWO.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
|
|
|
| 4/28
|
1793 Chain Cent ...
Struck over a Washington Clad Quarter.
|
Click for
Obverse
or
Reverse
enlargement
on
CD-ROM
|
-
Keep A Sharp Lookout For Treasury Agents!
This is a Gallery Mint Museum COPY of a 1793
Chain Cent (reference Sheldon 4). The obverse die for this piece is
a minor doubled die (visible on Liberty's profile). This coin was one
that I acquired from Adam Hardcastle, former Chief Coiner of the
Gallery Mint. What is most unusual about this piece is that it was
struck over a Clad Washington Quarter Dollar. Washington's profile is
slightly visible in the wildly flowing hair of Liberty, and traces of
the wreath are visible on the reverse. As with all Gallery Mint
products, it was struck using the same technology as that available
to the early U.S. Mint (i.e., on a Screw Press). This piece would
grade About Uncirculated or better, but is not fully struck up, due
to the thinness of the Quarter compared with a normal Cent Planchet. -
Mark Honea...Apr-18-02 13:44:23 PDT
The Chain Cent on the quarter is a great piece! The
Obv2/Rev1 die combo shows a mintage of 50 pieces. I wonder if that includes
this one? Cliff Bolling...Sun, 21 Apr 2002 18:47:13
What Mark didn't tell us in his description is that this creation
escaped the GMM mint facility without the COPY counterstamp
that is required by U.S. law on such reproductions of legal tender
coinage. This means that it certainly would be a bad idea to display
this neat specimen in a convention exhibit at any time in the future.
Not all of my GMM overstrike examples are copy
stamped. I'd estimate 1/3 of my GMM overstrike items are copy stamp
free. The theory back then, as I understood it, was that if its obvious
that their recreated 1790's US mint products are stuck on host coin
from a later time, then its obvious such an item is not possibly real
and could/did leave GMM without the stamp. Part of the fun of getting
my "special orders" back then was seeing what got stamped and what
didn't get stamped or where the stamp got placed this time. A clad
sandwich and reeded 1965-1999 type Washington 25c piece would never
have originally found its way back to the 1790's Philly Mint. Being
without the "copy" did not surprise me. Being a Chain Cent on a quarter
did surprise me. Because I ACTUALLY ordered an Overstrike Chain using a
1979-S proof quarter sent long ago to Arkansas. At that time Ron returned
my money and my 79-S quarter host saying "he did not want to damage his
dies." Because of my experience I'd say Chain Strikes on host coins in
general are next to impossible to find. - Lindy Stone...Tue, 30 Apr
2002 07:24:58
It sure is nice to have Lindy's input and historical perspective! Ron has
apparently gotten much more strict on the COPY counterstamp as time has
gone past. In my experience anything struck with his coinage dies gets the
COPY counterstamp. NJ dies on silver half dollars... dollar dies on clad
Ike dollars... I just never encountered nonCOPY marked specimens before.
Lindy is lucky to have started early on these neat creations. As to the
Treasury Agent bit... that is mostly just a way to grab the readers
attention although, knowing how our bureaucracies work, one never knows
what any particular agent might get it in their head to do in my opinion.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
|
|
|
| 4/24
|
An Adam Kelley Collection Specimen.
Uniface 1794 Half Cent
|
Click for
Obverse
or
Reverse
enlargement
on
CD-ROM
|
-
A Small Hoard Of Adam Kelley Creations
Shown here are two of 23 specimens that were sold today on eBay in an offering
by Gino Sanfilippo, eBay UserID ginoscoins. Gino purchased these pieces
in a small hoard ...in January 2002... in an eBay lot from Adam Kelley, former
GMM employee. We are not certain how Adam created uniface strikes which, while
seemingly a simple concept, are seldom if ever done at GMM. It is a bit tougher
to accomplish than it would first seem.
For those of you who are interested in viewing all of the pieces in the hoard
I have posted them for you here...
Link:A Small Hoard Of Adam Kelley Creations.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
An Adam Kelley Collection Specimen.
Uniface 1793 Cent
|
Click for
Obverse
or
Reverse
enlargement
on
CD-ROM
|
|
|
Gone Missing!
Kraft Carving #42
Frank Released 4/17/2002
Frank says he doesn't know where he
was for the last 10 days
but he got x-rayed, strip searched and irradiated.
They kept him in the dark for the whole time
so he never saw their faces!
|
|
| 4/14
|
Clifford Bolling photographs.
Click for
Enlargement on CD-ROM
1793 Wreath Cents
First
Proof, Second Uncirculated and Second Proof Obverse Dies
|
-
No Question About It!
I spent some time yesterday at GMM trying to track down the actual, physical
Second Uncirculated Obverse Die (SUOD) for Ron's wreath cents. We also dug
around in Ron's memory a while to no avail. Ron did recall that his wreath
cent dies were some of the strongest, longest lasting, dies he ever created.
He did not recall anything that might have caused a second set of
uncirculated dies to be produced either before or after the work-horse
set that was used for all/most? 6,000 wreath cent strikes.
When I got back home I found Cliff had sent me scans of both proof wreath
cents to compare to the uncirculated wreath cents. There simply is no
question... there were FOUR distinct dies with FOUR distinct busts.
Cliff previously had the following thoughts about the SUOD subject:
I've been thinking about the odd 1793 wreath cent
obverse die. The current assumption is that it was a new die created to
carry on after the original die failed, because when Lindy ordered a
terminal die state of the original die, he received this instead,
concluding it was a new replacement die. How about this instead - In
the past, when Ron couldn't fill an order for a special die variety,
like the terminal die state of the old obverse wreath cent die, he would
usually send along something else equally interesting in it's place, and
not mention that it was something really cool. This is how I received
some of my more interesting pieces (in the early days). What if Ron
decided to fill Lindy's order with some specimens of an equally interesting
pattern/first design/trial die strikes? That would make the odd wreath
cent die a very low mintage, probably less than 10, likely less than 5.
That would help explain why Czapla didn't know about it, and also why no
others have turned up. What do you think?? -
Clifford D. Bolling...Wed, 3 Apr 2002 07:36:27
I also mentioned Cliff's thoughts on the SUOD strikes to Ron and this
postulation did not ring any bells with him. We may never know why the
SUOD was created. For those of you clever enough to purchase a
ScrapBook CD-ROM, here are a couple more scans that Cliff sent of the
three specimens shown above...
Link:LARGE and
Link:SUPER sized.
For your reference I am showing the date area of all four wreath cent
dies below.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
|
|
Locomotives On One Ounce Silver Rounds
I just found these silver rounds being offered on eBay and, while I
normally have no interest in bullion silver pieces sold at what I consider
to be inflated prices, these five pieces peaked my interest at roughly $8
each.
They are blank on the reverse ...so... perhaps I can convince one of our
talented engravers to turn bullion into art. You can click on the image
of the common reverse at the left to see an enlargement of this empty
"canvas" that is waiting for one of our modern carver's creativity.
4/28/2002 Postscript: I already have six carvers willing to help me
with creating Carver's Silver Autographs from these neat silver
rounds. So... I've had to scramble and order another set of Locomotive
silver one ounce round blanks.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
|
|
| 4/11
|
-
Rolled By Water Power
Ron created "Good For" tokens at a Texas Renaissance Festival a number
of years ago. He created TRF roller dies that had three different $1
tokens and a single $2 token engraved on them. These dies were powered
by a water wheel that functioned like Segovia's "Royal Mill Mint".
The copper specimen shown on the left is a Lincoln Cent that was fed
through the "Good For" TRF roller die as a trial piece or perhaps on
a whim. It was rolled through the "Type3" $1 token portion of the roller
die. The brass specimen shown on the right is an unidentified brass medal,
you can see the rim in a few spots, that was fed through the "Good For"
TRF roller die as a trial piece of perhaps on a whim. It was rolled
through the $2 token, lapping down just barely onto the "Type1" $1 token,
portion of the roller die. I spent several hours at GMM on 13 April
2002. Ron has another brass trial piece in his museum display that is
just like this one except Ron's was run through one of the $1 token's
portion of the roller die. It is displayed with the TRF roller dies, example
copper strips (both unpunched and after the tokens were punched out) and
various TRF tokens.
Both of these specimens show the elongated "out-of-round" result of
rolling an originally round piece. The brass piece was thick enough
so that it lapped onto the next engraved portion of the roller die just
as the 1693 silver 1 reale shown below did. We have visited these
interesting "Good For" TRF tokens twice previously in
Link:Good For $1 In Trade...Royal Mint and
Link:Texas Renaissance Festival Tokens.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
|
|
1693 Barcelona 1 Reale rolled
on a silver strip (or coin?)
22.1mm x 20.4mm
|
Click for
Obverse
or
Reverse
enlargements
on CD-ROM
|
Rolled By Horse Power
I think the underlying design (which shows up only on the dated side
of the coin) was on the silver strip before being run through the roller
dies. I wonder how that strip was manufactured? If it was run through a
roller mill with smooth rollers then perhaps one roller had some sort of
pattern or damage on it... same sort of thing if it was stamped out
somehow... the anvil or hammer could have had some sort of pattern on
them. To me it seems clear that the underlying design has nothing to do
with the roller dies being used to make the coin itself.
The multiple bead impressions (in the circle of beads) really gets my
goat. It seems the roller would have to "hesitate" or "stutter" and roll
back and forth a bit. Can't see how that would happen. Maybe the mill
was being driven by man or horse power and not by a water wheel. Then
it could hesitate while with a water wheel and gears it doesn't seem
possible for that to happen.
Barcelona used HORSE driven mills, so your theory
about a strange clatter or jerk in the movement does sound quite possible.
The only Spanish Peninsular mints to ever use waterpowered rollers were:
Segovia Royal Mill, Granada and Cuenca... all the others used horse power.
The punch operators were typically not very careful so an off-center
punch-job is actually more common than you might think. Also, remember
that the engraved designs on a roller die must be in perfect allignment,
or one side winds up not coinciding exactly with the other.
If you like that kinda stuff, there are lots of roller-die billon coins
of all Spanish Peninsular mints 1660-1664, with every type of error
imaginable... some really fascinating, mostly inexpensive to purchase. -
Glenn Murray...Thu, 11 Apr 2002 01:37:27
I had one additional thought that would explain the underlying impression,
the elongated "out of round" final coin and the edge of the bar defect.
If one took a previously rolled silver coin that had the edge of the bar
defect and fed it through the 1693 roller dies then the coin would elongate
and spread far enough to pick up the bit of detail from the "following"
coin engraved on the roller die. That way we would get a final coin
that is larger than one punched from a strip.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
|
|
| 4/9
|
A Clifford Bolling photograph.
1996 Tulsa token struck over
a 2000 Mercury Head token
|
Click for
Enlargement
on CD-ROM
|
-
This Isn't Supposed To Happen!
I just received my GMM goodies from Gino and
the 1996 TULSA RECOLLECTING THE FIFTIES token was struck over
a 2000 Mercury Head token. I thought older dated dies weren't used
after the show they were made for, yet this piece would seem to
indicate that a 1996 Tulsa die was used after a 2000 dated token
was struck, and used to overstrike the later dated token. -
Cliff Bolling...Tue, 9 Apr 2002 21:30:16
Well now... let us think deeply about this. The underlying 2000 token
was struck with a die that wasn't created until some five years after
the regular 1996 Tulsa tokens were struck. (This is the second Tulsa
die that was used at the show and not the first Tulsa die that was
rejected because it was too large for the GMM traveling mini-mint
press.) So... what do you know? ...YOU ARE QUITE RIGHT CLIFF!
Joe Rust has an explaination for this sort of occurence. He was
reminiscing one day about statements made by officials at the U.S.Mint
in which they denied any possibility of certain peculiar numismatic
specimens being created in any of their facilities. Joe said, and I
fully agree with him, that as long as you have people involved in the
process then "unauthorized things WILL HAPPEN!"
Unauthorized creations by their very nature are QUITE RARE and always
interesting to me personally. It is the production run specimens that
are generally readily available but these odd creations that slip
through the cracks are almost always as scarce as hen's teeth. Not
every US numismatic collector has a 1913 Liberty Head nickel and not
every GMM numismatic collector has a 1996 Tulsa token struck over a 2000
Mercury Head token. Dang few even have a Tulsa token of any sort!
Too bad that Gino didn't describe his Adam Kelley specimens in greater
detail! This is the second exceptionally unusual piece that was inadequately
described in his eBay offerings. Well... Cliff and I both benefited from
this circumstance.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
A Clifford Bolling photograph.
Clear view of the 2000 underdate
on the original token.
|
Click for
Enlargement
on CD-ROM
|
|
|
ScrapBook Visits Continue To Rise...
...but we all know that things will slow down during the summer months.
I was hoping somebody would convince a mainline Numismatic publication to give
our ScrapBook some column space but that hasn't happened yet. Bet that would
really get things "moving!"
The graph shown below is far too small a scale to leave any sort of
legends on the axes but the counter on our main index webpage is now
experiencing roughly 200 visitors each week. This is roughly double
what we were had three months ago. Anybody who goes directly
to any of the subject webpages and never clicks through the main index
page doesn't get counted. We may be experiencing significantly higher
levels of interest than that counter indicates.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
ScrapBook Visit Trends
Apr.2001->Mar.2002
|
Click for
Enlargement
on
CD-ROM
|
|
|
|
/\
__ __
__ __
__
__ __
__ __
__
__ __
__ __
__
__ __
__ __
__
__ __
__ __
__
__ __
__ __
__
|
