Stone Mountain Half Web Site

This is speculation at this point on my part, but I have a little experience from my other project. Reconstruction in New Orleans was a difficult time and in researching the 1881-O Morgan I did some work on the Mint personnel. It took a lot of time and effort, but eventually I was able to complete a profile of just about every Mint employee. http://www.1881o.com/mint_personnel.html There was a lot of tricky stuff with transfers from Washington, nepotism, and other issues, and I am sure that the same stuff went on at the Philadelphia Mint in that era.

But it takes some government records that so far I have not been able to locate for the Philadelphia Mint in 1925. In 1881 they still published a list of every Federal employee. But by 1925 either the government was so large that this was no longer practical or we just have not found the right source.

Once the source is located I have the resources to see if the Mint employees are descendants of veterans (maybe veterans, but highly unlikely). My speculation right now is that the errors we see may be more related to the die creation, which in my opinion was sloppy at best. It was not done at the Mint and apparently the annealing/tempering process was not properly done, or the die steel was not of good quality. This shows on many coins where the die seems to have collapsed. I will post more on this at some later date.

 

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I don't understand your note, it is there.

 

@HawkeEye - really great site! Kudos on a job (in progress) well-done!

While the Stone is not one of my personal favorites, it is a vital part of my favorite series, the early commemoratives, and I have a number of them.

When I get home tonight, I'll register my (raw) counterstamped SM (NC244), which you can see here.

 

I made a little more permanent fix, so give it a try.

 

Hmm, Just saying but I don't see it.

 

Well the issue was trying to register a counterstamped coin with us and the function was not working. I made a permanent fix to the submission form to fix an error. Beefer518 has one to send me. You would not be able to see it unless you tried the form earlier and it failed.

 

In my quest to build the first complete grading set there are just some coins you always want to buy because of the subjectivity or subtleness of the grade. In particular the + grades can be a bear and you can spend a lot of money to grade one. I found this one last week and it fills this hole in the set nicely.



PCGS has graded only 31 of these and to see one up for sale is a real find. We now have a 64+, 65+, and 66+ although not all are up on the web site yet. The 63+ will be tough because of there has been only 1 graded and it isn't likely to show up. 67+ and 68+ will be tough because of availability and cost and might not be within budget unless I find the deal of the century.

 

I see it now and thanks for the fix. Very interesting.

I am going to a local coin show next weekend and will have an eye out for an interesting find.

 

Well keep looking, apparently there are a few to be discovered.

 

I just picked this one up on eBay for the right price and it will fill a grading set hole nicely.



PCGS has graded 48 of these which is a high number given the low number of graded coins. But this is the first one we have seen in any sale and it saves a lot of time, effort, and money when they are available.

The reverse die is obviously rotated and this often produces coins with doubling features. But we need to get the coin in hand to see if those still exist at this grade.

 

Just picked up and posted these two and think they are a nice addition to the collection.

This is an MS64 and I think under-graded. http://www.stonemountainhalf.com/35741486_64.html


This one is an MS66 and has a little bit of color to it, but only a little.
http://www.stonemountainhalf.com/35703819_66.html

 

Very nice Website!!

 

Hi Mike,
I've been trying to contact you for a while now. I'm researching the 50 piece series. I would like to see what you have that I may not.

Thanks,

Lee

 

I have a number of coins in the pipeline, but this one showed up on eBay and I grabbed it.

A nice MS64 example

 

Very interesting web site. I'll be studying this site to learn more about this coin. I am working on a 7070 album which has a spot for commemorative coins. I'm trying to fill it with coins that would have a meaning to me, ie: birth year for me and family, etc. I grew up a few miles from Stone Mountain so I'm looking to get one of these for my album. Should be fun!! Thanks!

 

GREAT choice. My 7070 has a “Stonie” in it. The other 3 are a 1935-S “San Diego”, a 1982 Washington, and a 1986 Statue of Liberty.

I gave the 7070 to my kid at Christmas, but I kept a list of empty holes on my Notes app on my iPhone. I expect to fill one next Saturday at a York, PA coin auction, or maybe two.

 

My newest acquisition on this front. An MS67 with a little bit of color. This one has nice detail and a well struck coin in my opinion. There is a little date doubling and letter doubling on the obverse, but maybe not enough to be the true double die.



I have a large group going to PCGS for photography and they will fill in a lot on my grading set.

 

Very cool site thanks for your contributions! Stone Mountain half is one of my favorites as well, and oddly enough the one commem I've found crh'ing. Living in Atlanta I've climbed the mountain many times and it's a fantastic park, the carving really is impressive.

 

Thanks for the kind words. When I get these back I will have just over 100 up on the site. Finding the missing grades will be quite a challenge but I will get there over time.

 

One of this week's acquisitions. A PCGS MS65 with some nice color, but also some crud from the minting process on the reverse at the top of the eagle's left wing. There is also some discoloration at the top and bottom of the reverse that looks like it might be from the minting process and this will take some more research to sort out.