Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;bhp3rd, post: 691206, member: 16510&quot;]<b>Wow big ???&#039;s</b></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The mint-mark is placed/punched into the finished die, sometimes 2 times, three times, 4 and so on - remember the finshed die is in a reverse/negative and encuse state with devices, lettering, date ect.</p><p>In other words the highest point of the die is the lowest point of the coin.</p><p>In these years they must have been on drugs because there is hundreds of different re-punched mintmarks esp. in 1960, 61.</p><p>These have nothing to do with the actual striking of the coin.&nbsp; DoublED dies and re-punched mint-marks occur before the first coin is struck.</p><p>Sometimes, (and on most of these) thousands if not hundreds of thousands were struck and released.&nbsp; The (the mint foreman) probably did catch it (the die) but did not care or think it was significant enough to pull from production.</p><p>The premieum we place on most anything is do to supply and demand. popularity and current market/collecting trends.&nbsp; If you find a way to know what that is going to be in the future you will become very rich indeed.</p><p>The &quot;who&quot; determines what is a variety are the top experts in the field some of the names are Welxer, Potter, Bordner, Crawford, Wiles, Fivas, Stanton and there are other and most of there own files system which often do not match up or overlapp/cross reference.&nbsp; Luckly most of the major ones in the Red Book or Cherry Picker&#039;s Guide are easily known.</p><p>Finally a big &quot;yes&quot; you have to &quot;know your stuff&quot; but you do if you are going to become a expert in anything.</p><p>The most important thing is to learn first &quot;how coins are made&quot;.&nbsp; If you know how they are made you then can know how they are not made and be able to first determine if it could or could not have happened art the mint. Then move on to the next thing, looking at 100,000 of coins, study books, websites, articles, etc.</p><p>It&#039;s sort of like golf - if you started at age 8 and played every week you&#039;d be pretty good at it by the time you were 65.&nbsp; So if you start on die varieties at age 45 or so (like I did) you better work at it every day and in 20 years or so &quot;you&#039;ll be pretty good at it with only about 60% of it left to learn - same as general coin collecting if you want to become an expert.[/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