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DrLarry

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Everything posted by DrLarry

  1. DrLarry

    Propaganda ART in coins

    Gold Staters : has anyone ever read anything on the topic of these earliest Lydian coins that looks at the reverse indented side of the coins rather than the obvious design? I am intrigued to know if there is any significance and if there are any inverse moulds of the "hammer" marks?
  2. DrLarry

    Propaganda ART in coins

    From the earliest coins designs have been used to make statements that the state controls the weights of precious metals and therefor trade both internally and externally. How have these decisions on how much one lump of gold is worth in one place get translated around the world in ancient time and more recently in standardised ways? The two central characters in the earliest coinage Lydian (according to Herodotus) the people of Asia Minor placed a lion and some other sacrificial animal on the first gold coins. What is the significance of these animals? Later coin designs represent Kingship as close to Gods and in most ancient cultures the head of the state usually had a significant role in the core religious rights. Coins reflect some important methods to put forward propaganda kingship and or religion. can we have a discussion on this very broad topic please? my interest is as coins as small portable pieces of art, but most including all of ours since late saxon times also fulfill propaganda purposes at the same time.
  3. DrLarry

    Propaganda ART in coins

    Yes I am sure they would have done so too. I am not sure how old the measurement of 1 grain is is it the weight on one grain of wheat of barley? I think in the early gold staters the value was also indicated by how "complete" the lion was so a half stater had half a lion pictured. I assume trading governments must have developed a standard in grups like the Hellenic League or the Athenian Power base. I wonder if it was originally a religious order relating to metal working or smelting metal who would have made the first decisions. The fact that coinage is so linked to the gods and often is our only sources of great lost works of art like the statue of Zeus at Olympia and THe statue of Athena in the Atheneum and Parthenon. The early egyptians did not have coinage for thousands of years but they were traders
  4. for completion sake here are the other letters of the same 60 of interest in general the coin is in a good state it was slabbed as MS62 but it has carbon spotting on the lustre and is speckled. It seems to me that all the letters have been changed from the smaller curly based type usually slender lettering and over punched with larger letters sometimes three times as in the A of VICTORIA on the of of victoria a nice base sticks out the side and this lettering length follows throughout. Only the Y of Penny on the reverse is altered
  5. and for more enjoyment some strange things in other 1861 pennies the first a lost bar on the A in VICTORIA the second the broken T with the top of its neighbour up inside the inner circle, the 3rd is a V in VICTORIA which looks like an inverted A and the last is a broken F in F:D
  6. here are some other candidates or red herrings
  7. yes that one is very interesting I purchased it slabbed then freed it I will take some more picture I also thought it very strange and I agree a D or an O does seem to fit the pattern it makes I thought I had another with the same but have searched through and only found these other punch errors
  8. interestingly in the 61 there is a lot of alteration on the PENNY initially the P appears to be much more slender it then in some dies gets over punched with a slightly rotated P this then seems to be followed up by a further repunch which attempts to fill in the gap created by the rotation and is overstamped by what appears to be an I leaving a thick P . The E NNY also in some show slender to fat lettering changes and there is a lot of alteration of the inner circle . |Am I being anal?
  9. I wonder if the economics resulted in hiring a few that mixed up their letters in these early days there was no master engraver employed or I presume an artistic director if the master wishes to make more profit presumably he or she ( !) may have cut corners>
  10. oh yes what am I thinking sorry a moment of temp insanity ......
  11. ok so this was the initial offending article that led me into this little journey , yes of course it is essentially a die break and metal flow but in later specimens I will perhaps be able to illustrate that something appears to have been removed but as always I am not saying that certainly the E was once over a B just that somewhere out there an E over B may exist in full or in part. I only post these so that we can all check and have an opinion
  12. I suppose copper powder in the recess would melt at a lower temperature than the bronze but localised proximity might bond the copper to the bronze even to allow a small extension of the life of the die. I am not 100% sure of the melting points of the two or if in the furnace without some catalyst it would be possible it certainly seems to make some sense to me and I have often wondered how they do correct things as there often seem to be errors that appear (at least with scars) to have been altered especially on the early 60's pennies and half pennies. But it must be a hell of a difficult job.
  13. yes I imagined they might be able to do that but you would have to be pretty desperate for spare dies of mild to bad quality to need to use such an action , it is interesting that correct some things and not others
  14. thanks I will load up these pictures in a bit of the E over B idea and also a few other strange things in one or two 61's a V over A and an A which has completely lost the bar
  15. Jerry could you explain for me the process of "filling the die locally" do you mean physically insert a piece of metal the hope it stays in place? This little journey with this E over B? in the 61 LCW reverse is proving to be quite interesting. I will prepare the pictures and let you take a look I have gone through about 20 and there are indicators and I would value your or anyone else's input who may have some 61's Thanks
  16. in one sheet they are all OT I do have one PT so far 1 in 20 and none with a dot large five
  17. i have not abandoned your request I cannot at this time lay my hands on the sheets of pennies I have all the other dates but know I have a couple of pages full of them I will keep looking
  18. LOL yes I will side swipe that and ask you did you take a look at the 1860 ??? Bover ? I put images up for you ? stay concentrated on the matter of coining. I of course voted remain because the unnatural order of things is to try to make alliances and share within a geographic space and of course I liked being part of something bigger as a European it got us a little closer to being a heterogeneous mix and a planetary inhabitant rather than an islander. I am an idealist and live in hope realism seems so bleak
  19. I will look for that too I didn't mean I had no care I meant I only collected that many because of some strange legend errors. I get a little over focused if you had not already noticed lol
  20. Oh for a world where good manners counted but in its more general absence I kid myself political correctness fills in the missing gaps. But it should never stifle open dialogue in the persuit of greater understanding and discovery by asking questions without causing harm to others. Children adapt easier to changes I'm sure.
  21. Mine are mostly cheap ones I was intrigued by something in the legend I'll count tomorrow sometimes I don't notice these variations at times I just like them they are pretty shiny things lol
  22. I will post a picture tomorrow. I noticed in quite a few that the inner circle is completely absent in this area on some and the teeth much shallower. I have a couple with strange things happening around the penny rotations, what looks like an I stamp to re-enforce the loss due to rotation, N over skinny Ns. And twisted Ys.
  23. 1861 E over B PENNY has anyone ever come across an 1861 PBNNY E over B I have one which has a die break connecting the upper and lower part of the E with additional metal in the centre. The die break follows the arc of a B curving around . I always think of die breaks as following the line of least resistance which sometimes seem to indicate they follow flaws where a letter may have been mistakenly set and or removed. I assume that you would have to grind down to remove such an errors and if you do not grind down sufficiently cleanly the fracture can occur along that boundary. Am I correct? my confusion arises from the HALP varieties some say they are over P's some clearly are die flows connecting where the P is removed.
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