When I was younger my father was an antique auctioneer and one part of the business was to go to homes of people who had passed away, appraise the items in the house that the family didn't want bring them to auction or just buy the estate if the family didn't want to be bothered with an auction. I would help out when I was small by emptying boxes...... Jump a head a bit to present day. I was in one of my regular coin stores and he had a graded 1909 vbs (i believe) penny and it might have had an obscure mint mark as well. When I was younger I vaguely remember a penny that encased in a plastic type container. Over the holiday family came in and I asked one of them if they recall seeing something like that when we were younger. Long story short is YES. Rewind to playing in the boxes. The container the penny was in was 100% unopenable. It seemed like someone got a penny and melted plastic and encased the penny in it. The shape of it was square but the edges were not sharp. The thickness of the container on either size was about the thickness of maybe 3 penny's tall. It was professionally done, it's not like someone just melted the plastic and encased it because you could clearly see the penny. I tried everything to open it, I hit it with hammers, rocks, and finally I got mad and just threw it at a tree in my backyard and said screw it. If I recall correctly this penny was definitely a 1909 and the way the container was made it magnified the penny and I'm pretty sure it had SVDB. Can someone tell me if they have seen or know of something like this being done with penny's that are rare? Pictures would be a great help and if you could show me a picture of a rare penny one one of these that will light a fire under me to go get a metal detector and look for it and I will share profits 50.50. thanks
If it were an "SVDB", the "S" would have been under the date, and the VDB would have been on the other side at the very bottom. Also, about 40 years ago, I had a paperweight-making kit called "Plasticast". I would fill a mold half-way with an acrylic fluid, then waited for it to harden. Then I would put a coin or whatever on top of that, and pour some more acrylic solution over that and wait for it to harden. Then, voila, I had a coin paperweight. Maybe that's what you had?
YES, to bad they don't have a "Rep" button on this fourum becauser you deserve it. I talked to a few old time coin buyers, dealers, melters and they looked at like me like I was friggin nuts. I'm not a 1000% sure that its an SVDB but I do recall letters on the coin like where an engraver would put them. Is this something alot of people did? Did people put rare coins in them or was it just a novelty? Because the thing was safe from the elements, no air gets at it and you can't open it unless you have a saw of sorts.
http://www.encasedcollectorsinternational.org/album/Files WII/What Is It.htm This is a section on the ECI site called " What is it? ". Lots of different style of encasements. The rarest one that I've ever seen was a 1914-D cent on this site. Some pretty wild looking stuff here... Click on page number to get started...
I think it was probably just a novelty. My kit was ordered from the Sears Wishbook, I think, and I received it as either a birthday or Christmas present. I, myself, didn't put any rare coins in the paperweights I made (I couldn't even afford rare coins back then). But I did make a nice paperweight with some Mercury dimes, and another with an old Queen Victoria florin. My grandmother covered the bottoms of the paperweights with felt. As I recall, I took a hammer to one of the paperweights and was able to get the coin out that way. But now I wish I had left the paperweight intact.
A ton of 1904 Indian Cents were encased like this for the world's fair. They cannot be removed from the encasing without totally destroying the coin, and I've seen ANACS grade the coin and slab the entire encasing along with the coin. http://www.pc-cheats-codes.com/game...-1c-unc-st-louis-worlds-fair_120635424557.jpg
