Ancients takes over World !

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Time to merge the two again. Ah well, it's the old issue of "creating" and having an audience. For example, I am primarily interested in modern Western/Central European coins, and we all pick forums where we find others who share our interests. Since I find (modern) US coins interesting too, and coins in general of course, I do read and write here on CT. But I do not like talking to myself, hehe.

Christian

 

I think Tif could get you one of her CACA stickers.

 

Which brings up the subject of my next thread: "How much premium will you pay for a coin with a CACA sticker?"

And we can follow that up with about a dozen threads on CACA vs Wings, vs CAC, vs whatever else.

 

Oh man, I've always wanted CACA on my coins...

 

So which CACA sticker has the higher premium? The golden brown or the green one?

Man, as a native Spanish speaker I'd love it if CACA became a real thing.

 

The red one.

 

Sounds painful.

 

Not my coin, but I think this would be a good candidate.

 

A less painful option would be getting a green-and-white CACA sticker. My parrot can hook you up:

 

I see thins often in ancients as well. Many ancients collectors collect by variety and spend much time trying to determine die matches. Not much different from someone trying to assemble a die variety set of 1794 large cents.

 

What would happen to the statistics if the ancients count included all those posts we made before they gave us a separate section?

In ancients, there are reasons for die studies other than creating rarities to sell at a premium. We can establish the way that mint operated from the order of dies used. We can find die links that suggest the two linked dies were used at the same mint. We can establish cases where two cities shared a mint striking for both. Modern coins come with records that explain all these things in language any reader can understand. Ancients yield secrets through reverse engineering, hard work or dumb luck. This may relate to why some of us have problems with collectors whose only interest in the coins is now much they can profit from reselling them in fancier packaging.

 

The figures would probably not change significantly. Keep in mind that, once the Ancients forum was set up, all the existing topics about such coins were moved there. Not sure whether each and every ancients topic got "migrated", but you guys did certainly not start with an empty sub-forum.

Christian

 

The die marriage studies on modern coins, particularly early US coins, DO provide information that was not recorded, such as practices at the US mint and the order which the dies were used. It is not just about “creating rarities to sell at a premium.” For example, by studying the designs on the obverse and reverse, we can tell that dies were not put aside for use in only the year for which they were made. Dies made in 1794/1795 were used in 1796 to 1798. Surplus dies made in 1798 were recut so that they could display the current year, creating many overdates. Studying the edge can sometimes suggest how coins with different years were made with the same technology and thus were made at the same time. There are also many spectacular die failures, which show the mint’s practice of using dies until they literally fell apart, or show some of the careless mistakes that the mint workers made. All of this is done with “reverse engineering” as none of this was recorded at the mint. And these characteristics can be seen on the “common” varieties as well as the “rare” varieties.

I like some of the varieties that tell these stories, but I could not care less about varieties whose only difference is that the berry stem is tilted 5 degrees more on one die than another (except for flipping for profit).

So I reiterate: the die studies are not that different.