Secret Marks on Coins

See post 40.

 

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To answer the OP's question, no.

The 1875 dot cent is an interesting coin, but made for another purpose.

The Canadian 1936 dot coins were allegedly made to indicate that they were struck in 1937, due to the abdication of King Edward VIII late in 1936 and the scramble to suddenly produce coinage for King George VI.

The U.S. 1836 Gobrecht Dollar was struck with two different die alignments to separate the 1837 strikes from the 1836 strikes, but that was not related to counterfeiting.

 

OK, I looked at both my proof specimens today and all I found in the bushes was an old golf ball and an empty budweiser can ... no secret initials ... Do you see any?

 

You sure it's not a Billy Beer?

 

Shouldn't that be Bush Beer?

 

Lol! All I can tell you is that the initials were confirmed but I don't own one.
Look harder!
Maybe they're more difficult to find on a proof unless you know where they are...Let me see if I can find a clue for you...

Ok, I found someone saying that they thought they spotted the initials close to the ground in the bushes and that the initials are pretty tiny.

Here's what John described during the interview, The way Mercanti visually described looking at the full sized sculpture... I'd agree, he seemed to be indicating that it was indeed tiny on even the larger original. Sounded like Matt P, the sculptor, leaned over to him after John didn't notice the initials when seeing the design and simply said, "John...look in the bushes."

 

One possible secret mark, but there is some question to the validity of the story, are the scalloped point stars on the early capped bust halves. Supposedly the dies with the scalloped point stars were ones actually done by John Reich. These dies were individually hand punched. Not all the dies were made with the scalloped point star punch but when it was used it was only used on star 13 and I believe in all but one die the scalloped point was always in the same position. It may not indicate John Reich, it may have been a trademark of one of the other engravers, but it stops the same time Reich left the Mint.

There are also some claims that the design on the broach is a stylized JS but I find that less believable.

 

Thanks for this mind-expanding thread.
The 1875 Indian cent was the only one that came to mind as a single altered die for law enforcement purposes.

I'm sure my pareidolia is working overtime but here are two possibilities on the designer's initials (MP) hidden in the bushes of the Goerge Washington half.
(Be sure to click on them to get the full enlarged benefit. LOL)
Thanks to the members Coincorgi and LakeEffect for the images they provided.
And a lot of the interpretation depends on lighting/shadows.

 

I remember that I was told the initials were near the ground in the bushes so you may have found them...wondering if they're actually harder to see on a proof.

 

That lower-left position is where I imagined seeing them, but I'm pretty sure I could make out any other arbitrary pair of letters if I concentrated long enough.

 

Nice work A bit of a stretch maybe but who knows, you could be right. It's possible the artist took some creative license in hiding them, since a blatantly obvious attempt would have been discovered and removed by the mint, so...

 

I'm not aware of any deliberate detail added for the purpose of preventing counterfeiting. The level of detail of the designs, process of die manufacturing, and the need for precious metals in the right weights went a long way to prevent counterfeiting. Fake banknotes had a higher payoff and may have been lower hanging fruit. For circulating coinage, any secret mark would have to be pronounced and protected enough to survive circulation wear.

Today's die manufacturing processes allow using steganography to encode an authentication message in the seemingly random 60-grit cameo surfaces. To authenticate such a coin, you'd need to read the surface texture and decode it with a key. The stronger the encoded image, the easier it would be to read (i.e., adequately photograph for authentication), but it would also be more easily reproduced.

Going a step farther, such an image could be applied directly to the coin and encode a serial number, which would also be human-readable on the coin. This would operate much as PCGS's RFID chips in their slabs do. Something capable of reading and decoding the latent encoded image would tell you what coin you should be looking at.

 

Dot 1875(?) cent comes to mind.

I think a few early large cents also use the dot technique, although I’m unsure if it was meant to ID dies or to deter counterfeits/theft.

 

Despite any respectful source(s), me thinks this may be one of those cart-before-the-horse scenarios...we think/imagine we see something intentional in/on something random (a Jesus-image in a cloud or on a potato chip, cookie, etc...with all respect). Saw something that looked like it could reasonably be an 'M' in the narrow space between pillars, but nothing of a legitimate 'P' below it...and the 'M' could easily just be some random coincidence in/of the bushes rendering.

 

Interesting post and I can't speak to the posted topic...

But off topic I can speak to odd marks/ features "added" to counterfeit coins that help prove them counterfeit...

 

This is kind of like the "Find the Pope in the Pizza" contest.

 

Dave Waterstraat said: ↑
The 1885 Morgan Dollar JUDD 1747 was an attempt to come up with an anti-counterfeit feature.

http://ec2-13-58-222-16.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/wiki/Morgan_1885_Edge_Lettering_Pattern

 

172 (or possibly 5172 or 3172), was in the bushes on old $5 bills. I haven't looked lately to see if it's still there. This was common secret knowledge when I was a kid.

I think that's a fact, not allegedly. Canada's 1947 Maple Leaf coins were struck in 1948 for a similar reason.

 

Do you have an example besides the "Omega" we can look for?

 

Actually Mr. Phil, I have a few that I have never revealed to anyone and I don't intend to. Others, including your ilk, need to do the work for themselves.

The "Scalloped Star" is a well-known good one (Secret Mint-made mark) that is a mystery Except...Scalloped stars appear on our other coins long after JR DIED!

You'll need to wait for an upcoming column (that your comment inspired) in Numismatic News for another I'll "reveal."

Semper Fi to you Marine.