I recently got a lovely and outstandingly lustrous specimen, question to follow pictures: No real wear but some die polishing - the lustre better in hand. My question(s): how was a coin with such low silver content made with such a surface - does anybody know for certain and has anybody done a measurement of surface silver purity with XRF or other technology?
I would think, with such a strong strike and the die polish lines, that this might have been struck by a fresh pair of dies.
Yes, KY, I saw that one - amazing that so little nickel seems to color the center of the "cookie" a whitish silvery color evidently. I know the Romans used to blanche coin blanks in acid prior to striking and that a more up to date version of that was supposed to have been done to Brit silver in the 1920s after the reduction to 0.500 silver in the coinage to make it at least initially more pleasant appearing.... (BTW - I used to think 50% silver was rather poor & let's not mention the 40% JFK and Ikes!). In looking at this coin, the surface silver of a 65 year old coin looks nearly sterling. BTW, since my birth year (oops, let that out of the bag) I bought a slabbed PCGS 67 version.
I think there’s a surface treatment to the planchet. I have one, somewhere, where the copper is starting to show all over the surface.
Yes there would have to be although in KYs citation the OP in that article said underneath the outer silver was another silvery color perhaps due to 1/10 nickel content.
LOL, well that one is a bit mean! That coin is showing a bit of the underlying metal. Don't know how it can actually be called silver.
That's one of my favorite carved coins by my favorite hobo carver . . . . . It was titled "Skinny Enrique" . . . . . . Z
They used to call them "silver wash" but the exact means apparently varies from one thing to another. For what it's worth I'm also told that the amount of "wash" or silver on the one Peso issues varies considerably with most of them being less than 10% silver. I just don't know but presume this is the reason these trade at a large discount to silver. These coins are underrated in nice chBU and better condition. AU's are common and MS-60's aren't tough but nice choice coins are a little elusive. Gems aren't much harder than chBU for most dates but some of the Gems are tougher.
