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<p>[QUOTE="dougsmit, post: 2686960, member: 19463"]This is the important part. There was relatively little effort to have every coin weight exactly the same as every other coin in that batch. The idea was to make a number from a pound of silver. With practice, I suspect the workers got pretty good pouring out the right amount but the scoop idea was even more accurate. Lets say they wanted to get 72 coins from a pound. They would start with very slightly more than a pound of silver to allow for what was lost in the process (stuck to the tools etc.). Then they would pour 72 blanks and weigh the whole batch. If it weighed over a pound, they would scoop a little silver from some coins and weigh the batch until the total was finally exactly a pound. There seems to have been little effort to scoop from the heaviest flans and there are even rare examples that were scooped twice. This system was explained in a paper by Clive Stannard so we call these adjustments 'Stannard scoops'. After a while, the mint stopped doing it as suddenly as they started. Why they did not just take silver from the edges I do not know but it might be that doing so would allow coins to be trimmed or 'clipped' by people outside the mint while the scoops were done before striking. Many people consider scooped coins to be damaged and ill not own one. I collect them but pay less in most cases unless the scoop is interesting in some way. They vary in the number of stutters made by the scooping tool and I find added interest in those with more stutter marks but more collectors who will own one just want one to demonstrate the idea. Some are cut more deeply and some are nearly erased by the striking with dies. Often the thin spot creates a weak spot on the opposite side of the coin. </p><p>[ATTACH=full]601943[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]601944[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>My example with the most stutters (10?)</p><p>[ATTACH=full]601945[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="dougsmit, post: 2686960, member: 19463"]This is the important part. There was relatively little effort to have every coin weight exactly the same as every other coin in that batch. The idea was to make a number from a pound of silver. With practice, I suspect the workers got pretty good pouring out the right amount but the scoop idea was even more accurate. Lets say they wanted to get 72 coins from a pound. They would start with very slightly more than a pound of silver to allow for what was lost in the process (stuck to the tools etc.). Then they would pour 72 blanks and weigh the whole batch. If it weighed over a pound, they would scoop a little silver from some coins and weigh the batch until the total was finally exactly a pound. There seems to have been little effort to scoop from the heaviest flans and there are even rare examples that were scooped twice. This system was explained in a paper by Clive Stannard so we call these adjustments 'Stannard scoops'. After a while, the mint stopped doing it as suddenly as they started. Why they did not just take silver from the edges I do not know but it might be that doing so would allow coins to be trimmed or 'clipped' by people outside the mint while the scoops were done before striking. Many people consider scooped coins to be damaged and ill not own one. I collect them but pay less in most cases unless the scoop is interesting in some way. They vary in the number of stutters made by the scooping tool and I find added interest in those with more stutter marks but more collectors who will own one just want one to demonstrate the idea. Some are cut more deeply and some are nearly erased by the striking with dies. Often the thin spot creates a weak spot on the opposite side of the coin. [ATTACH=full]601943[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]601944[/ATTACH] My example with the most stutters (10?) [ATTACH=full]601945[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]
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