Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;BRandM, post: 7315180, member: 22729&quot;]ExoMan has been trying to convince me for a long while that the Rudolph counterstamps aren&#039;t California issues. While I&#039;m not totally on board, the more I think about it the more I&#039;m accepting the idea. I also have a couple of Rudolph stamps but don&#039;t have a vested interest in them being from California. Like ExoMan I want them to be properly attributed.</p><p><br /></p><p>A good example of correct attribution comes with a group of Large Cents that Brunk listed in his reference simply as &quot;A Set of Countermarked Coins&quot;. The prevailing theory...not his though...was that they were used as ID badges by a band of so called Copperheads during the Civil War. There are about 15 coins stamped with a single word such as Irwin, Jack, Lodge, Beam, Dike, etc. These are supposed to identify members of the ring to each other. </p><p><br /></p><p>I was lucky enough to pick up 10 of the coins over a period of several years, mostly from Steve Hayden. As I studied them it became obvious to me that they were never carried anywhere by anyone. Some were well precerved, nearly pristine and some of the stamps showed the copper of the coin. I was always skeptical as was Brunk, but the misinformation was passed on from one source to another and so became &quot;truth.&quot; I NEVER saw any sources for the supposed attribution, even in an article in the Numismatist. No sources were ever cited because there aren&#039;t any.</p><p><br /></p><p>I did find out later what the coins were actuslly used for from a man who remembered them well from his childhood. They were&nbsp; used in a child&#039;s game to teach kids how to construct sentences and the general useage of language. Some &quot;Copperhead Ring&quot;! A relative of his had stamped the coins many years earlier and were used by his grandmother as a teaching aid.</p><p><br /></p><p>The correct attribution is important.</p><p><br /></p><p>Bruce[ATTACH=full]1278565[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1278566[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1278567[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in