[Game] World Coins Time Machine… Counting Backward by Year! (Plus Prize Coin)

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My Lesche digger, my pinpointer, my detector, and I are all raaaather envious of your 1700's metal detecting finds...

 

I'm sure more of these will show up.



It was the losing entry in my first attempt at the 'Coin Gladiator' competition. Can't remember what it was up against, but I'm still partial to it. Hey @lordmarcovan, @Aethelred and @dadams (and more) --is the CG going to get revived? That was a cool contest.

 

one of my 1776 coins...beautifull design!
AV Dukat 1776 Nurnberg Mint
Prince Karl Albrecht of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst
6 known in collections

 

my second ex:
AV Louis d'or 1776-A Paris Mint
Louis XVI of France 1775-1793 due to Guillotine

 

Your 24 hours is up, so here is 1775:

(This one probably an evasion as a little small and light.)

 

1775 -- Mexico, 1/2 real:

 

A nicer version of the Russian than I posted above:


I am now out for nearly a couple decades (barring any newps of course )

 

SIBERIA.
Denga (1/2 kopek) 1775.

 

1775 contemporary counterfeit British halfpenny

British halfpennies and their counterfeits circulated in America and Britain. The counterfeits were minted in both locations also. This coin is unattributed so its location of manufacture or circulation is unknown.




Early on, I wondered how to verify that this coin was counterfeit, and not a worn regel halfpenny. It seemed to me that the shape of George III very well matched that of the photos of regal halfpennies. I found that a comparison of letter characters from a questioned coin to a regal will determine if the coin is regal or not. In this era, coin dies were punched by hand from engraved letter and design punches. The series of British halfpennies from 1770 to 1775 share the same letter punch designs. I verified that this coin is a counterfeit readily from the A and G letters.

My suspicion that the shape of George III on this coin matches that of the regal was well founded. Later I would purchase a regal halfpenny, and overlay photos of the counterfeit and this regal, with the top coin being a semi-transparency. Overlapping the obverse designs, I found amazingly that the bust of George III in both coins were an exact match in major features and size. The counterfeiter must have used the below method of die sinking.

From: http://coinhelp.net/civil-war-token-values/civil-war-token-die-sinkers/
Die sinkers were around long before Civil War Tokens became popular. …

Die sinking was the art form of taking a known coin, token or other metallic emblem, attaching it to a metal rod and driving the rod at high velocity into a piece of hot, soft metal. From there, the die sinker would use his engraving skills to enhance or alter the stamped features and cut away the excess. The result was a new die for the coin press. Then the metal was hardened by heating and cooling. Assuming it survived this process, it was used to mint coins in a coin press.

Beside the letters that identify this coin on a counterfeit, the details that the counterfeiter engraved into the design also clearly identify this coin as counterfeit. More on this in my next post.

Next up is the 1774 regal halfpenny that I matched up with this counterfeit.

 

@PaddyB

Allow me to correct you that “Evasion” is not a correct term to use for your coin. I have seen sellers on eBay commonly use this term for coins that should be called contemporary counterfeit halfpenny, like your coin. Evasion halfpennies refers to the class of halfpennies made to look like regal halfpennies but with legends that are different from those used on regal coins to avoid (or "evade") counterfeiting laws in Britain. I have one dated 1730 where the legends read: obverse GEORGE RULES, reverse BRITAIN’S ISLES … the obverse and reverse devices on this coin are representative of a George I halfpenny. I plan to post this coin when (if) we get to 1730. This coin was undoubtedly predated to 1730 by the minter though. The reference for my info (link below) says that most Evasion coins were minted after 1771 when counterfeiting was made a felony in Britain, but that some minters did turn to minting evasion coins as early as the 1750’s.

Oh, additionally halfpennies known to be minted in America (like Machin's Mills halfpennies) are called imitation rather that counterfeit because the British halfpenny was not a US coin, and the imitation coins were meant to be used in the US.

https://coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/ColCoinIntros/CtfBrit.intro.html

 

Back to 76/ forgot I had this one...
AV 2 Dukaten 1776
Zurich
only 100 pieces were minted.
AND
AV 1/2 Escudo 1776-PJ Madrid Mint
Carlos III of Spain

 

Last fling at 1775 - I found I had this Irish Halfpenny:

 

... and as I think we should be onto 1774 by now, here is my Farthing:

 

1774 -- UK, farthing:

 

Trumped on my home territory! That's a beauty!

 

1774 regal British halfpenny, S-3774. The bust of George III on this coin was used on the 1774 thru 1775 halfpennies. Earlier halfpennies from 1770 thru 1773 used a slightly different bust design.


When I bought this coin, I was looking for a worn coin that would match up well for comparison with a 1775 contemporary counterfeit British halfpenny in my collection. This coin was being auctioned as a counterfeit on eBay, but I recognized it as a regal because of the letters.

Below are a G and A character from a regal halfpenny that is not in my collection. On the G, I first look for the crescent moon at the top of G. It leans to the top right. The A has a narrow left side and a similarly narrow looping cross bar. I believe these are the easiest letter characteristics to use, and will likely eliminate all suspects.

Below is a comparison of this regal and the 1775 counterfeit halfpennies. Also shown for comparison are the G and A characters from those coins.


Differences: There are many differences in the designs, but the one that I would like to elaborate is:

- The regal obverse, on the left, has worn at its highest point, the laurel diadem, where the details of the leaves are worn away in the center laurel. The top and bottom of the laurel still show detail because they are lower (and thus protected) on the coin. Notice that the center laurel is worn, but the face details are still strong. This is a normal wear pattern.

- The counterfeit obverse, has details that are exactly opposite to a normal wear pattern. The center laurel shows detail, the top and bottom of the laurels show less or none, and the face details look worn down.

I speculate that the counterfeiter used the method of taking a regal coin and driving it into a hot, soft metal die. This method does not capture the fine details, but captures the overall design likeness. The counterfeiter then maybe opted to add the leaf detail at the center of the laurel, but largely neglected the face detail, and the rest of the laurel; or maybe the high points on the sacrificial coin just transferred better than the low points.
Similarities: The photo below (leftmost view) shows the semi-transparency of the regal coin and the counterfeit and versions of the overlaid images with the top coin cropped to show how amazingly the fit is between the devices of these two coins. The photos of the coins in the semi-transparencies were shot in succession with the camera mounted on a stand so that the dimensions in the photos are the same. The coins were laid flat to avoid distortion from coins at an angle to the lens. The images colors were altered to enhance features, and to differentiate the coins in the semi-transparency. The images were loaded into PowerPoint and no adjustments to the photo dimensions were made. The images were aligned to overlap the devices.

 

I just happen to have three coins from this year. Brazil, Brunswick and Poland.