I wanted to share a pic of the new Smithsonian licensed Ephraim Brasher Gold 1787 Doubloon. The piece was developed by New York Mint/GovMint and is hand struck in the style of the original. As a collector of privately made medals/coins I am very impressed.
A similar reproduction, minted with hand-engraved dies on a period coinage press to the exact same standards as the original, was produced by the Gallery Mint Museum of Eureka Springs, Arkansas several years ago.
Gallery Mint Museum did some beautiful work. I wish they were still around. They also supplied some very fine American Wood cases for their coins. The new piece has the crude out of shape look of the original...but the gold content is .999 instead of the original content. Here is the ad...http://www.firstfederalcoin.com/shop.axd/MarketNews?art=14175
Did you note the question mark in the first sentence from that ad? "A new limited-issue of the legendary Brasher Gold Doubloon has just been released, officially licensed by the Smithsonian Institution?. " This sounds to me like it ISN'T licensed but they are trying to get you to think that it may be. And the title says half doubloon, the first sentence calls it a doubloon. And it calls it a Brasher Doubloon, but then goes on to talk a lot about the half doubloon which is actually a doubloon that had a damaged edge turned down on a lathe. So is this copy a doubloon or a half doubloon? From blowing up the images and the way the outer legend is missing I'd say it is a half doubloon. And from the images I don't see the word copy on these. It does have the date 2011 after the word Brasher but I don't think that would be good enough. OK I see it now on the NGC label that it is a half doubloon. Frankly this doesn't impress me, nor does it impress me that NGC has slabbed what I consider an unmarked copy.
I think the ? in the paragraph is a typo... The 2011 date on this would make it not an exact copy. Personally I am just pleased with the fine American craftsmanship and the fact that NGC will preserve in a slab which makes it easy to handle without damage.
I think the untimely death of the Chief Coiner had a lot to do with the fate of the Gallery Mint Museum. Also, the Chief Engraver had another project in Eureka Springs that he wanted to start, and from what I've gathered some of the employees offered to buy out the coining operations. But they really weren't able to get anywhere with their business (which was renamed Striker Medals and Tokens, I think), so they sold to a third party who took the coining equipment out of Arkansas.
