Some of you may have seen my post from a while ago about this piece: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/di...-head-large-cent-pattern.363665/#post-4645853 In sum, it's a Proof 1843 Petite Head large cent that is carefully engraved with a layout of the design that would become the Mature Head. 1843 was a transitional year for the Petite Head and Mature Head types, and all large cents of 1844-1857 bear the latter design. I have a few updates on the piece: A) Looking at the circular guidelines visible on both faces (above, highlighted in blue), we find that they are very telling in terms of the coin's origin and purpose. The compass-guided alignment process we see here is in fact not a new technique for the U.S. Mint. In A Guide Book of United States Gold Dollars, Q. David Bowers describes the process by which the dies for the 1849 gold dollar were created: ". . . a metal compass or scribe was placed at the center of the hub die, and tiny circles were scratched around the periphery to serve as guidelines. Then, on the obverse die 13 stars were punched in by hand, and on the reverse die, lettering was placed around the periphery." In other words, prior to using die punches to stamp in sections of the design such as the stars and lettering, a compass or scribe was used to hand-engrave light circular guidelines around the face of the master die in order to indicate where these punches would be placed. This technique was employed upon the dies of early United States coinage as a whole, though collectors of cents and half cents may be especially familiar with it due to the central dot present upon many earlier issues, the result of the compass digging into the die during the alignment process. Since the engraving work upon the master die is recessed, the dot is raised on struck coinage. Above, the die punch alignment process (image courtesy of Bill Eckberg). Below, leftover impressions upon the die from the compass used in the alignment process: from left to right, central dot upon reverse of Coronet Head cent, and remnants of circular guidelines upon proof 1834 half eagle. This system of compass-drawn circular guidelines is the exact method used upon the engraved 1843 cent (below). I've highlighted the guidelines below in blue, with arrows indicating where the central point of the compass created an indented mark upon the surface. Though there were of course no die punches used upon this piece, the purpose of employing this method is essentially the same — only instead of punching in the design elements, they were hand-engraved. B) The piece now resides in the following PCGS holder: After receiving it back from grading, I noticed that the engraving work was in fact first carved and then traced with black ink, which wasn’t totally apparent from the photos I had available in the meantime. This is a technique that I have seen employed on many foreign prize medals in order to make hand-engraved details more visually apparent, but it’s interesting that it was utilized by an employee of the US Mint here. Because of how carefully this piece was stored, and perhaps due to the relatively few hands it has passed through since its creation, much of the original ink remains. The inking is only done over the areas of the final engraved design and over many of its corresponding guidelines (on both sides), and not over the engraved areas upon the piece that were scratched out and redone (this only occurs on the obverse). For example, you may notice a scratch on the cheek of the portrait in the TrueView; in fact, this is the scratching out of a continuous rim-to-rim horizontal guideline that is located at a slight angle to the inked-in "final" horizontal guideline, beginning one bead below it at the left rim and three beads above it at the right: In fact, there are many areas upon the obverse that appear to have been engraved lightly and then scratched out and rearranged. By mapping out all of the engraved-and-then-scratched-out areas of the piece, which are also the areas that are not inked in, we may construct a layout of an initial design that was engraved upon the coin. The initial stars and horizontal/vertical guidelines are accurately represented in the following image, but the lines representing the date box are a bit rough as there are a lot of engraved lines in that area and it's hard to tell what's going on: Evidently, midway through the engraving process, and after the stars and at least part of the date box were engraved, the engraver decided to ditch that design and rearrange the engraved layout. He seems to have done this directly after engraving the vertical guideline, which only goes halfway down the face of coin, unlike the other guidelines. You may notice that in this initial layout, the horizontal and vertical guidelines are not perpendicular, as they are in the final design. I assume that the vertical guideline represents the rotation of the portrait, while the horizontal guideline represents the rotation of the stars. You can see that the two horizontal guidelines each line up with their corresponding stars in this way. However, since the engraver had not yet begun to trace the portrait before he switched tactics, the initial vertical guideline does not visually align with anything. It is interesting as well that the scratched-out uppermost star and corresponding horizontal guideline line up roughly parallel with the scratched-out date, as pictured below (the blue lines). In the final inked-in engraved design, the uppermost star and date also line up in this way. Since the arrangement of the stars and date are identical in the initial and final engravings, one would there would be no need to stop the process and re-engrave everything at this point, and instead the portrait could simply be re-engraved at a slightly counterclockwise angle to match that initial engraved layout of the stars and date. But, this discounts that there is a reverse to this coin, and that the obverse and reverse are at a 180° rotation to one another. If Gobrecht had continued with the initial design, the date and uppermost star would not be centered opposite the reverse design. In the final engraved design, they are.
I've been trying to figure out what my coin was for decades! It's a model for a proposed design! I'm so sorry and it is taking everything in my power to keep from using emojis/color to comment. Color me extremely skeptical but you got it into a TPGS slab. Jackpot! Sorry I missed it if you identified exactly what famous collection this came from or what you know of its history.
Yes, thank you. I was just finished reading it. That is a great piece of research work and it belongs in the EAC Journal. As for me, I remain unconvinced. I cannot explain my opinion except to say that it might be fun "creating" things to fool coin dealers.
I can understand approaching new discoveries with a grain of salt, but when would this have been done? It was photographed in a 1987 auction, engravings and all, as part of a collection that was amassed in Philadelphia circa 1891-1901 and sold posthumously almost a century later by the estate of the collector. In that collection it took the spot of the 1843 Petite Head Small Letters type in a date/major variety set. It is also a proof of which only 15-20 were produced, so damaging it post-mint would be very unfortunate - and since it was neither sold by the collector who purchased it in the 1890s, nor apparently described by him to be anything other than a damaged proof, it would not make sense to do so. Additionally, the engraving is so expertly done that the surfaces of the piece are otherwise undamaged and original, and it mimics known Mint processes as described above. There is also the fact that the engravings show observable stages in the development of the final design. In sum, all signs point to it being original.
Rexford, posted: "I can understand approaching new discoveries with a grain of salt, but when would this have been done? It was photographed in a 1987 auction, engravings and all, as part of a collection that was amassed in Philadelphia circa 1891-1901 and sold posthumously almost a century later by the estate of the collector. [If we disregard the "Grandmother Story" we know the coin showed up in a 1987 auction.] In that collection it took the spot of the 1843 Petite Head Small Letters type in a date/major variety set. It is also a proof of which only 15-20 were produced, so damaging it post-mint would be very unfortunate [that's a + and IMHO the ONLY valid reason this might be a special coin. But in 1843 it was just a Proof cent w/no known mintage. Perhaps done as a caprice.] - and since it was neither sold by the collector who purchased it in the 1890s, nor apparently described by him to be anything other than a damaged proof, it would not make sense to do so. [So a collector described this coin in his collection in 1890? If so that dates when it was altered outside the Mint - if that's the case. Eighteenth Century and early Nineteenth Century engravers were much better than folks alive today. This piece is rather crude for their work.] Additionally, the engraving is so expertly done [] that the surfaces of the piece are otherwise undamaged and original, and it mimics known Mint processes as described above. There is also the fact that the engravings show observable stages in the development of the final design. In sum, all signs point to it being original." As I wrote, Jackpot! PCGS agrees.
