Stone Mountain Half Web Site

This morning I am opening up a new web site to explore the die varieties, counterstamped inventory and types, grades, and other items of interest.

http://www.stonemountainhalf.com​

We have already expanded the previous counterstamped coin census from 140 coins to 285 and believe with a little help we can go much further. http://www.stonemountainhalf.com/counterstampcensus.html

Our inventory starts with 48 coins spanning 16 different grades. No one has ever completed a grading set for this series and that is one of our short term goals. We have another 50+ coins in the pipeline and hope to be at 100+ coins by year end. For all 48 coins there is a dedicated page with PCGS high res images and a discussion of that coin's features. http://www.stonemountainhalf.com/21025455_66.html for example

This is purely a non-commercial educational effort and we hope you enjoy. As we have other updates we will post new information here. Thanks and enjoy.

 

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Thats awesome!

 

The Stone Mountain half is one of my favorite classic commemoratives for so many reasons: I saw the actual carving years ago; the story of the fighting amongst head carvers and commission members; current discussion of the subject matter; personal histories of the two men depicted...thanks for the web site.

Steve

 

I never went, but when I connected in Atlanta to go to Dallas for the March ANA show, the pilot couldn't have done a cooler fly-by if it were his mission to do so. Now I feel I need to go and see it from ground level. From about 7,000 feet, it looked pretty cool. Of the three great mountain sculptures, the only one I haven't yet seen is Crazy Horse.

 

Just quickly looked at your website. You did a fantastic job! Very impressive. You relate the story of the Stone Mountain Memorial and the Commemorative Half Dollar very well. Congratulations!

If you would like some info and pictures about the original coin holders for the Stone Mountain coins (beyond the Roosevelt Hotel holder) and some original memorabilia, just let me know. Commemorative coin holders and memorabilia have been my area of specialization for decades.

 

Very nice!

 

That is a really cool project! The Stone Mountain is one of my favorite commemoratives.

 

I actually have been to all three, and the Crazy Horse will eventually be the best. It has some very interesting twists to the story and the magnitude of the effort is a one family's multi-generational work. It started in 1947 so they are already 70+ years into the effort with no government money involved. I knew I would only go once so we made a little contribution and got to ride to the top and stand next to the head. Worth the money and the time.

 

When you have time that would be great. I have to be careful because as I said there are thousands of items because of the commercial nature. I am limiting things to the early work. Thanks

 

Thanks for the kind words and I hope you will share the link with others.

 

I posted this on another thread yesterday, but it worth mentioning here also. I have struggled with understanding die doubling even after years of work on Morgan dollars. Maybe as I age I just need some pictures to get things straightened out in my mind.

Last week I ran across this site http://doubleddie.com/58222.html and a lot of things I have struggled with became clear for Morgan Dollars. But the Stone Mountain Half has many of the same issues.

With the Morgans many features were added to the dies through the use of punches, so doubling was a human mistake. But by the time the Stone Mountain Half was created hand punching features was long gone. So why am I seeing so many double die features?

Once you do some detailed reading on this web site the methods of introducing doubled dies becomes much clearer. No matter what you collect in all likelihood you will encounter doubled die coins at some point and this information can help you understand the process.

I think it should be required reading for collectors at all levels of expertise!

 

I have several early 1925-1935 original distribution holders and a book that is important to promoting the aims of the Stone Mountain Confederate Monumental Association. I have had letters from the SMCMA regarding the distribution of the coins. If you are interested I will send you pictures and information to add to your wonderful website. All I ask is an acknowledgement of where these came from. I cannot give you my email address on CoinTalk so I will send it to your website's contact us page. Thanks, Mike.

 

No problem with any of it and happy to acknowledge your contribution. How about contact me directly through the web site.

 

Here we are at Crazy Horse back in 2004, and it is one large carving.

 

I have always been a fan of your 1881 0 website. It is bookmarked.

I have lived within 15 miles of Stone Mtn for all of my life except for my college years in Athens (45 miles away). I learned more from your website than I ever knew.

I see many of these uncirculated coins in local coin shows. I had no idea that they were considered as interesting as you have described.

 

I also went to UGA and have been to the mountain many times. Through the counterstamped coins they unintentionally created some of the rarest varieties in the US coin world. I think the die varieties are going to be very interesting and Borglum created some of them through poor design and then the die maker made even more errors. It should be an interesting study.

 

This morning I posted a new MS66 coin with some very interesting features.


http://www.stonemountainhalf.com/34289827_66.html

The obverse is in really good shape and at first examination so is the reverse. But on closer study the reverse has some interesting features.
1. There is a die crack that runs down the eagle's left wing that we see on most coins, so probably a weak point in the design
2. There is letter doubling in several places on the reverse, but we believe some to be on the die and some potentially from the strike
3. We are looking into another common feature of this series and that is improper annealing/tempering of the dies. On the reverse many of the letters at the rim have a concave appearance where the die has collapsed and left an uneven impression. This needs more work, but we think this is the case. The dies were not prepared by the Mint, so it is certainly possible.

 

I sent you a message through your website yesterday. Thanks.

 

Great website!

Like many people here I have a Stone Mountain half dollar.

The section on production problems was most interesting.

Possibly the huge (over 1,000,000) mintage had something to do with this but I like the speculation that Union veterans or their relatives working at the Philadelphia mint caused the problems.

 

Wonderful site, congratulations.

I love this commemorative coin.

i would like to suggest adding the doubled die obverse, it has a nice doubling and easy to spot.