I have been a guest here forever and I have been impressed with some of the postings. I have now thought it time to show a few pieces I would like to have your opinions on. The first is this Shield that looks to be doubled on the reverse most notably around the word United. I hope this pic shows up well. Let me know what you think. Thanks.
Howdy Jim - Welcome to the Forum !! To be honest, it looks to me like mechanical doubling. But there are 35 varieties for the 1866 and it may be one of them. Your bst bet to find out for sure would be to visit this site - Shield Nickels.net
The coin is too out of focus to really tell anything. I see a couple places where star points appear to be doubled but that could just be a focus problem or for a slight movement of the camera during the taking of the picture. Without a sharp clear picture we can't really say anything.
I can see the doubling on the coin, but I'm not sure about it to be honest. Looking at the lettering, it looks like just machine doubling. But, I'm not sure I can say the same thing about the doubling on the stars. Maybe a larger pic and some more opinions will help.
Although the picture is somewhat out of focus, it appears that there are split serifs on the Clockwise edges of the Letters as ell as on the Stars and the upper portion of the "5"! Frank
See this http://www.cointalk.org/showthread.php?t=22452. Howard called my machine or strike doubling and it looks like yours might be the same. Still the reverse on that shield nickel looks pretty good.
Mark: No question, yours is machine doubling. Jim: Yours is very faint, but if it has a flat shelf like appearance, then it is machine doubling. No additional value.
