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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Conder101, post: 557398, member: 66&quot;]There are two types of counterfeits Contemporary Counterfeits which were intended to circulate at the time, and Collector Counterfeits were were made for sale to collectors.&nbsp; The Collector Counterfeits can be broken down into a further two classes, the Fantasies whch were die pairing that never really existed as circulation pieces but which were produced just so as to have something to sell to a collector, and the Hole Fillers which were made to be similar to a rare piece to act as a hole filler until a genuine could be obtained and as a means of cheating the collector by making him think he had the genuine item.</p><p><br /></p><p>Civil War tokens are remarkable free of the Contemporary Counterfeits, and Hole fillers, but it does have a fair number of Fantasies.&nbsp; Conder Tokens on the other hand has almost no Hole Fillers, but the Contemporary Counterfeits and Fantasies are quite extensive.&nbsp; The Contemporary Counterfeits and the Fantasies were actually made during the 1790&#039;s and are cataloged and collected right along side the genuine tokens.&nbsp; Most counterfeits were not made in off metals but were the same pure copper as the genuines but of lighter weight.&nbsp; Most of the off-metal pieces in Conders would be classed in the Fantasies and most of them are actually quite rare.&nbsp; The most commonly encountered hole filler or modern counterfeit is a Warwickshire piece that copies the John Wilkinson/Vulcan that was produced in the 1950&#039;s.&nbsp; I see this one on ebay frequently being sold as a genuine token.&nbsp; Oddly enough sometimes with an attribution which is strange because if you look at it closely it really doesn&#039;t look right.&nbsp; It seems to be struck on a low zinc brass alloy but I really can&#039;t figure out how the token was struck.&nbsp; The reverse show wll formed rims with a nice squared border that meets the edge at a sharp square angle.&nbsp; The obverse rims though are poorly formed and they round over into the edge.&nbsp; The closest I can come would be that the pieces is struck and punched from the strip with the same stroke of the press.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Yes you would have the metal flowing out but it flows out in the FULL THICKNESS OF THE PLANCHET.&nbsp; It would not just be in a thin flange in the center of the edge.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t know the sources you read but they were wrong.&nbsp; Yes a geat many of the Conders were struck in single piece collars but they were either plain or vertically reeded. (surprisingly there are very few vertically reeded Conders.&nbsp; They were typically diagonally reeded /////// or \\\\\\\ and you can&#039;t do that with a ope piece collar.)&nbsp; The tokens with lettered edges were created by lettering the edges of the blanks before striking and then striking without a close collar.&nbsp; There are a few cases where a lettered edge planchet was struck in a plain close collar, but in those cases th lettering on the edge is crushed to near illegibility.&nbsp; You are correct in that it is not possible to create a lettered edge token from a single piece collar. </p><p><br /></p><p>Matthew Boulton was experimenting with a press that used a multi-piece collar to strike a lettered edge token with a single strike of the press.&nbsp; It was invented by the French engraver Droesz (sp) but he was never able to get it to work properly.</p><p><br /></p><p>There are three ways that I know of to create a lettered edge with a multi-piece collar die.&nbsp; The first method was to fit a three or four piece edge die into a larger restraining collar and then place the planchet in the center and stike it.&nbsp; The piece and the edge dies would then have to both be knocked out of the retaining collar and then the pieces put back into the retaining collar.&nbsp; This method obviously is not suitable for high production coinage.&nbsp; The second has the edge die pieces mounted to the restrining collar with a hinge.&nbsp; After the strike the lower die rises up&nbsp; forcing the&nbsp; collar pieces to &quot;open up&#039; so the coin can be removed and then powerful springs return the edg dies to position as the lower die retracts.&nbsp; This was the method used for the Saint-Gaudens eagle and double eagle and the current proof dollar coins.&nbsp; The final method has the whole collar divided into three or more pieces which completely retract away from the coin for removal.&nbsp; Since this requires more complex machinery it is not typically used for coins.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>This piece makes no sense to me.&nbsp; There is no way I can see this coin being struck using a collar system.&nbsp; It is not the result of a broken collar or a missing collar.&nbsp; As I mentioned a missing collar results in a spreading out of the <b>full thickness</b> of the planchet not just a thin flange in the center of the edge..&nbsp; The only way a collar break could do that would be if the collar split horizontally and in that case there is no way the coin would be removable from the collar without major damage to the coin.&nbsp; As I mentioned earlier that only time I&#039;ve seen something like this is on a cast piece where the two halves of the mold are not clamped together well and the metal squeezes out between them at the seam.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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