David Lange did a series of articles in The Numismatist probably at least 20 years ago on assembling the ultimate 20th century type set. I'll...
As I said earlier, toning hides things. There's only one way to find out, and I don't recommend it.
Correct. I want 2 for my Dansco, and that's it.
Imagine if they did bullion, "burnished", proof, reverse proof, enhanced uncirculated finishes for both reverse types and struck them at all 4...
I'll get one of each BU when I can for my Dansco. I doubt that either of the bullion coins will be considered scarce enough to warrant a premium....
Leroy Van Allen and A. George Mallis. They're the two gentlemen who first collaborated on what is now known as the VAM book back in the 1960s....
They aren't primary diagnostics for VAMs in general, but make good fingerprints that let you confirm an attribution, and for 1921 and 1921-D there...
Yeah, I'm not giving that a bean.
Toning hides things. The obverse is more worrisome than the reverse for me. There are ticks on the cheek by the upper arrow, and it seems like...
Beats using mayonnaise.
Schmutz is a general term for the mixture of grease, grime, dust, powdered metal, etc., that ends up clogging dies. Here's one with retained...
One thing I've observed is that if one die has a lot of schmutz on it, the other one tends to as well.
A thin planchet wouldn't have strongly struck detail near the rims. If the planchet were thin only in the middle, you might get this effect, but...
Pretty sure those are hair detail.
The only one that makes sense to me is struck through schmutz. The periphery is strongly struck, it is uncirculated, a worn die would show a...
I can't tell from these pictures if you have VAM 54. Check for the die markers mentioned on that page. Note that the mint mark is set to the...
64. Elgins have a generally soft design, sort of like Peace dollars, and marks pop out more than they do on some other issues. There are a few...
Knife cuts. These raise up metal adjacent to the cut. The raised metal eventually wears down and covers up the cut, leaving a ridge.
The pictures I took above were out of the slab. Color shift is not affected by the presence or absence of plastic.
I do all my own photos, but end up with TVs of some coins because they're required. More often than not, I really don't like the TVs, and color...
Separate names with a comma.
