I recently stumbled on to this Hadrian Brockage. A bit worn, but still an interesting mint error. Does anyone know why we call these a Brockage. I tried to look up the word, but I did not find an answer.
That's cool This is from wikipedia: Brockage errors are caused when an already minted coin sticks to the coin die and impresses onto another blank that hasn't been struck yet, pressing a mirror image of the other coin into the blank. In the production of hammered coinage, brockages were very common, although largely restricted to obverse brockages, as the mint worker would likely notice if the coin was stuck in the reverse anvil die. I guess that doesn't explain the origin of the word lol. Still interesting.
As I understand it, the term derived from 'breakage' originally referring to mint waste most of which was caused by the die sticking as we use the word today. The coin here is rare as heavy bronzes are harder to stick in the die than lighter silver. As FF said, thin hammered pennies were commonly made this way but most were remelted. Does anyone have a brockage English hammered penny?
That's an interesting optical illusion-- I'm seeing the reverse in relief. Must be a trick of the lighting. Maybe if I stare long enough it will become incuse, like those optical illusions where the dancer spins the other way .
Sorry, but I may be wrong, but I can't see a brockage there. I see Hadrian and perhaps Antoninus Pius well, but no evidence of negative impression on either side. I don’t know if I’m really having an optical illusion too, but it’s a relief on reverse to me.
I might be able to explain this. Regularly over the time I have spent on CT and other online venues, I have complained when people insist on lighting coins from below rather than from the top (over the head). This is called ghoul lighting after the effect obtained by kids in Halloween costume that shine a flashlight up on their scary faces. When a portrait coin is lighted unnaturally rather than directionally as it would be in sunlight with the top of the head being lighter and shadows appearing under the chin as normal shadows should, it is easy for the brain, confused by the unnatural light to reverse the convex and concave surfaces. Brockages are unnatural by their nature so the light is naturally reversed when done well. Note the under chin light below is opposite on the two sides.
