Any thoughts on this item on eBay? It appears to be a Kennedy Half struck on a nickel planchet. It is amazingly well centered with no date showing. The planchet appears to have been run through the upset mill as a rim is visible. The seller provides the following information: "This item is silver or nickel but looks to be struck on a nickel size planchet. also weight is 5 grams." (Correct weight for a nickel is 5 grams.) Q&A IS THERE ANY COPPER SHOWING ON THE RIM? There is no copper showing looks like nickel or silver Hi, what is the edge like? Is it smooth like on a nickel or rough, like when someone used a grinder to grind it down? the edge of coin is smooth According to the seller a previous buyer backed out after winning the auction for this coin at over $400 because he decided it must be a fake. The current bid is $32.80 with a little over 24 hours remaining. From what I can see this looks to be a legitimate wrong-planchet error. What are your thoughts? If this is a fake how was the fake made? Would it be possible to mill down a genuine half to about the size of a nickel and have it weigh 5 grams? And how would you duplicate the raised rims? Below is a pic of the obverse:
I dont think its real - Notice on the reverse how the "rim" fades downward ,while on the obverse it it upheaved & somewhat flat in spots from the pressure it took to punch it out-- That says to me that the coin was jsut punched out from a regular half dollar-
Absolutely FAKE! That is too good of a strike all over to be done on a nickel. The nickel is both smaller in diameter and thinner. Secondly, there is no fade off toward the edges that would definitely be there were it a nickel actually struck in that big a die.
I could make those all day long on an engine lathe, including the rim upset. The diameter would control the weight, and the thickness could be manipulated as well, with minimal loss to the details. I do not know errors, I just know how to cut metal. To create that from a normal Kennedy would not be difficult to a machinist. EDIT, you need a rim shot...is it clad?
I would not buy a coin like that unless it was certified, and if it is worth so much money, then it should be certified. But since it isn't I'm led to believe that it is fake.
Make him an offer: He sends the coin to a reputable TPG If it comes back in a bodybag, it's his coin and his cost If it comes back genuine you'll pay the TPG fee and a 50% increase in your bid
There's not that much difference in the thickness of a nickel and a half dollar so I don't have much of a problem over the strength of the strike. He says there is no copper showing on the edge so that would pretty much eliminate machining down a half dollar unless you plated the coin afterwards, or machined down a 1964 half dollar. Examination of the edge would still tell you if it was machined or punched and upset. If they machined 1964 though it would be heavier than a five cent piece unless they made it smaller in diameter. One thing that would explain what we are seeing would be if it was struck on a type I blank. That could give you that curved edge seen on the reverse. Type I blanks tend to have a squared edge on one side and a curved over edge on the other. That fits here. I have a pretty good feeling that this is real.
Here is one courtesy of Heritage. Not all of them show this much fade at the edge, but all have some. I am surprised at how sharp the strike is. High pressure for the large coin on a small planchet, I guess.
I don't think it is genuine. As others have remarked, there is no metal flow in design elements bordering the coin's edge, and the reverse perimeter slopes downward. Both indicate the use of a hollow punch. If there's no copper on the edge, then either it was plated or the reverse clad layer was smeared over the core when the punch sliced through the coin.
That one almost fooled me. It looked genuine to me at first. I didn't even think about it being struck unrestrained by a collar and what that would look like. There is plenty for me to learn about errors. Mike, Your explanations about "stretch strikes" in Collectors' Clearinghouse in the current issue of Coin World were excellent. I can envision in my mind's eye exactly how those errors are made. Thanks for the insight. :thumb:
I am realy disappointed in anyone who bid on this fake. Poepl eneed to stop and think what happens when a coins is struck. The fields of this coin would have been flat against the die of the larger-size half, and there would have been no downward sloping on the reverse and no upward effect atthe edge of the coin on the obverse. In order for the detail to be struck uo, the metal in the fields would have been against the flat fields of the die. This "error" is an impossibilty based on the effects displayed on the "coin."
