Weird 1883 IHC

My opinion is it is die wear. Anytime you have rounded edges in a die, like around Miss Liberty for example, that is where die wear will show up first. There is a lot of metal movement in these areas, causing the wear. From the looks of your photos, I don't think there is any double or triple striking going on.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Over 45,000,000 made , wonder how many dies they used ? 1 ?:kewl:
rzage

 

I tried a different angle with an artificial light source and you should now be able to see what I've been trying to describe with the headdress and you should also see it has been stamped at least three times (IMO). Or, at the very least, something weird happned to the poor gal.





Be sure to click on the "!" thingy at the top of the pic to enlarge it to full size so you can see all the details.

Ribbit

 

Still pretty sure it is die wear. Nice pics on that last one by the way, what kind of light are you using?

 

The site shows you joined today.
Post a thread in the non member forum with some pics and ask the admin to hook you up. It's a bit slow but the information there is as good as it gets.

 

A flashlight, bounced off a piece of white printer paper placed behind the IHC, which is laying on a old Crown Royal bag that I use to photo all my coins on. :kewl: I tiried it for the first time tonight and it seems to work pretty good. Plus, I'm using a Sony Cybershot DSC-H7 8.1 MegaPixel camera, which has an awesome built in macro feature/function.

Ribbit

 

I tried both user names and it doesn't recognize either. Each time I tried to register, I got an error page with someone's email address to contact so I did. I should hear back from them by tomorrow (or soon) and once it's all sorted out, I'll post it. I've got all the pics I need now, so I'm all set to go.

Ribbit

Ps: I went to the Members Listing and saw the two user names I used to join, so I tried the "Forgot Password" thingy and this is the message I got:

"Sorry, but your password cannot be retrieved because your account is currently inactive. Please contact the forum administrator for more information."

 

I just love trying to join a new site

 

In a way, it could be a good thing. Only the ones serious about the subject, will take the time to get things worked out and the others will give up easily.

Ribbit

 

Some observations by someone who doesn't even pretend to be an expert...

These statements were made without reference to a known perfect example. Overall, the obverse lettering just doesn't seem to be as sharp and crisp as I would expect. Just looking at the coin by itself I would guess it's counterfeit. But, as I said, I'm no expert and I often don't know what I'm talking about.

 

David - I see three diamonds in the picture you posted with just wear across the 4th diamond(but I still see the remnants).

So far the worn dies seems to make the most sense. The coin looks legit to me, I just do not know what caused those lines like that.

 

Here's a couple more pics I just took with artificial lighting. It shows almost everything and quite well.







Ribbit

 

The ones around Ms. Liberty could probably be easily explained but what about the ones on the edge of the rim? This lil gal took some serious stress and/or pressure to cause all the damage that occurred and tack on the nice lil die crack on the reverse, and she is absolutely gorgeous.

Ribbit

 

Toad,

Thanks for posting the new pics. They helped...

I believe the lines are signs die wear (aka "flow lines"), the sunken area looks like "die sinking" which also occurs on large cents (and I would imagine other coin series as well) and is also caused by wear to the die, and the doubling appears to be Longacre Doubling (and not really doubling at all, per se).

The coin still looks odd to my eye.

Have fun & please keep us posted....Mike

 

Look at some of the snapshots of this nickel that I posted http://www.cointalk.org/showthread.php?t=36491&highlight=nickel. You see the same type flow lines around it - on my nickel it is from about 4 o'clock to 8 o'clock on obverse. This was caused by die deterioration, which is what I think you have. And yes I still have this worthless nickel in an airtite and I still keep it in my safe - I think it is cool.

 

They do look alike. Cept'n yours is on both sides and mine is just the obverse with a die crack on the reverse.

Ribbit