Numismatic Articles

by Len Ratzman – California Numismatist – Vol. 6 No.2 (Summer 2009)

When a mint error is first discovered, a predictably lengthy process is begun involving multiple recognized experts in the field to examine and scrutinize the coin’s authenticity under high magnification to separate a bona fide error from a manufactured counterfeit.

Ideally, after sufficient time and examinations have been made, the coin is either accepted or rejected by the numismatic community. But, in reality, there is a third possibility – unending disagreement among the experts. This outcome, of course, leaves many of us who are looking for definitive answers in relative limbo.

If decades go by and recognized, numismatic authorities still are conflicted as to the authenticity of the coin, what then? If, for instance, someone tried to buy or sell a specimen with this error to a dealer, another collector or at auction, how could they vouch for the legitimacy of the error and, in turn, ask a realistic price? This article is devoted to one such enigma that the author discovered by accident.

In a relatively recent attempt to determine if the Smithsonian Institute’s buffalo nickel collection was missing any specimens after all these years, an email inquiry was sent in early January to Mr. Richard Doty, the senior curator of numismatics for the Behring Center.

Sent from the American Museum of Natural History Behring Center where the coins are stored, Mr. Doty’s e-mail responded, “Your inquiry was passed to me. We do have a set of buffalo nickels, only lacking the 1934 two-legged and 1916 doubled die and 1918/7 varieties.”

Nineteen thirty-four, two-legged? When anyone specializes in one coin and finds (after decades devoted to researching that coin) that a variety exists unknown to that collector, it’s a very humbling experience.

A search of the Red Book, several Internet population reports, and reference books containing buffalo mint errors revealed many mint errors were listed but no mention of any two-legged varieties. Continued

By Greg Johnson from Volume 5, Issue 5 (May 2009) of The E-Gobrecht

I purchased an 1849 quarter in November of 2006 that I was, at the time, unable to attribute using Briggs’ “Comprehensive Encyclopedia of United States Seated Quarters” (Lima, OH 1991 ISBN 1-880731-05-3). A short article by John McCloskey in The Gobrecht Journal (Issue 98, pages 35-36) published the following March described in detail a coin from the same die pairing as the coin in my possession.

During the past two plus years I have examined every 1849 quarter that I could find, whether in auctions, at bourse tables, or on eBay (when photo quality permitted) in an effort to complete the puzzle. I now own four distinct business strike die marriages of the 1849 quarter and though there is not yet a definitive conclusion, I do have what I call a working hypothesis.

I believe that the “unknown” obverse is actually obverse 3 in the Briggs Encyclopedia and that there are a couple of typos in the description that have caused some confusion.

First, the date location of “just right of 5″ is in error and should read “6/7″. Note that date position is determined based on an imaginary line drawn along the right side of the upright portion of the “1″ in the date. The date position number then references where this line intersects the shield above with respect to the shield lines numbered from left to right.

Second, instead of “slopes up left to right” it should read “slopes down left to right.” I’ve noted that the distance measurements from digit to rock provided in the book read 0.5 – 0.5 – 0.5 – 0.6 indicating a downward slope from left to right, though the text says “up”. Figure 1 shows three dates of 1849 seated quarters, the top is obverse 2, the middle is obverse 3 (or the unlisted obverse if the hypothesis is proven wrong), and the bottom is the proof obverse (obverse 4, from the Heritage online archive, Lot 2390, Auction 1104, April 16, 2008).

It should be mentioned here for completeness that obverse 1 has a date that is much further to the left than any of those shown. Continued

By Len Ratzman – The California Numismatist – CoinLink Content Partner

The high only lasted a couple of hours.

It took only that long to find out that my friend’s 1795 Flowing Hair 3-leaf dollar in MS-55 (my estimate) that had been left to her by her greatgrandfather was, sadly, only a good counterfeit.

When Sarah called me from work that day, she didn’t even say hello. Her fi rst, excited words were, “Len, what do you know about old dollars?” I told her my thirty-plus years in numismatics coveting only buffalo nickels didn’t include silver dollars of any age. But, since she knew nothing about coins, she knew from 20 years of friendship that I could research the coin for her.

When she told me over the phone that the dollar was dated 1795, it didn’t take a specialist in the hobby to know instantly what potential value laid waiting to be realized.

I jumped into the car and made it to the restaurant where she worked in 11 minutes—normally a 20 minute drive. With my loupe already in hand, I said, “Hi,” and with indescribable anticipation asked her to show me the coin.

Although my grading skills only covered buffaloes from 30 years of studying them, I could still tell from the fi ne detail that, if genuine, the grading companies would probably register the dollar as an MS-55 or better. Cha-ching!

The next two hours were a blur of researching the Internet, visiting coinrelated Web sites, phone calls to local dealers and opening that latest Red Book to a section I hadn’t ever paid attention to.

But wait! A $30,000 coin just popping up out of nowhere? If it’s too good to be true, it usually isn’t. So, before I started making plans to send in the coin to be registered, I dug a little deeper and learned from a prominent expert on dollars that countless counterfeits from a foreign country had reached the states and there were two ways to tell a fake from the real thing: Continued