A simple way to tell if 2 coins are same variety

I was just playing around with some pictures and something finally clicked in my brain. A simple, foolproof way to test to see if your coin's mintmark is of the same variety as some picture can be based entirely on the position of the mintmark on the coin. Just overlay the pictures and see if the devices line up.

I'm sure this is obvious to most of you, but it seems like an easy way to rule out possible varieties that I never really considered before.

Here's an example. Are these two coins the same variety? I lined up the pictures so that the mintmarks overlap. The answer is clearly no based on the third picture.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I scan an image of the coin into a CAD system. Set the scale based on two known points on the design and use the mint mark's coordinates.

 

Very ingenious.

It would be great if one of the coin societies set up a big database for varieties, with set reference points for each coin. Imagine a service where you sent in a picture of your coin and you would receive a printout of all of the varieties that are ruled out, and maybe even a statistical probability that it is one of the varieties that is not ruled out. One could use facial recognition software or something like that. My mind wanders...

 

So Why is the mint mark the same?

 

He overlayed the pictures so that the mintmarks line up exactly and that made the other devices appear in different places. (The mintmarks are the same on both coins because they were punched into the dies using the same punch.)

 

That's a good point...it would be better to line up the devices, then see if the mintmarks align.

 

:high5:BINGO

 

Paste your coin images into microsoft paint, and set the zoom to the maximum then press ctrl+g to show a grid. You can crop the images to just show the small section around and including the mintmark and compare the two images.