Hi all, There is a website called AuctionZip.com. It seems to be a good place to browse for coins and currency. Today I was looking and came across this coin. They have it advertised as a: 1927 Standing Liberty Quarter with Swastika. What is the deal with this? I searched on the net and could not find anything about it. It looks like someone marked the swastika in with a black magic marker.
Post mint damage and the swastika looks to have been hammered into the coin with either a chisel or screw driver etc.....I can't tell if it's contemporary but it looks like it could be since it's had time to tone over and get crusty. It's not a coin I would want to own but to each his own?
If you are interested in it, here is the URL: http://www.auctionzip.com/aflive.html?method=getSearchResults&catalogref=385RGQ0HBK&wa=swastika Minimum 10 dollar bid.
Just damage IMHO, decreasing its value to melt. Hopefully it IS melted. Its a sad thing that happened to the swastika. This was a revered, cultured symbol of ancient origin, and it will be hundreds of year before it is known as anything other than a symbol of deranged German madmen or ignorant American rednecks. I have ancient coins with a swastika, but because of the current associations I do not like showing them.
What a coincidence - I just read about this yesterday in Numismatic News. Page down about halfway - http://www.numismaticnews.net/article/1980_saw_altered_Buffalo_nickels/ Joe
That is kinda interesting. If a person could find documentation from the mint on this, it would be kind of a neat thing to have.
Ruins the beauty of the coin!! Some coins look fine with that symbol and there's no getting away from it but it definitely wouldn't be of interest to me!!
I don't follow as the US mint never placed a swastika on the coin....someone took a hammer to it later in life? Now if you had some mint employee that snuck in during the night and defaced a working die with a swastika and a few of these pieces escaped then you would have a collector base for the coin even if some of us wouldn't want to touch it. As is if you like it just buy a circulated standing liberty quarter and use a screw driver and a hammer and create your own.....same difference.
I don't think the US mint did this to the coin. Did you read the article posted by hrhomer? What I am saying, is, if you could get documentation from the mint, that they knew of coins being defaced and circulated, then it would be neat to have. I understand your dislike of the swastika, but from a historical perspective, I think it is very neat.
I once used my aunt's fountain pen to scribble "Vote for Landon" on a 1934 $50 note (yes, I've been like that for forty-odd years). That hand-carved swastika is of no more import than the vandalism I just confessed to committing.
