More Pennies

[Diaconis]

16 minutes ago, DrLarry said:

thanks for that it has many of the features I would like in the processing application 

You're welcome DrLarry, somehow I knew that YOU would like it  

[DrLarry]

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.  

[jelida]

19 minutes ago, DrLarry said:

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.  

I doubt you could grind out the full depth of a misplaced repair on a die without creating a massive and obvious bulge in the field of a struck coin. Far easier to fill the die locally, polish the die surface (field on the coin) and re-punch the necessary repair.

And I do agree re the HALP halfpenny, all those I have seen look very much like a flaw, especially when compared to the 1860 E over P penny which is clearly an erroneous repair with a clear clean loop of the P.

Some nice discussions over the last couple of days, Penny-wise.

Jerry

[PWA 1967]

13 hours ago, DrLarry said:

well done that will be a really great contribution I have about 80 1853's which I have been studying as part of my collection on copper pennies.  Let me know if you need any help there are some strange things going on with some of the legends 

Why you have such a large group Larry can i ask you out of the eighty you have how many are PT please ?

Sorry if its not something you know off the top of your head but the PT is much scarcer and would guess at three out of eighty 

 

Edited July 5, 2018 by PWA 1967

[DrLarry]

26 minutes ago, jelida said:

I doubt you could grind out the full depth of a misplaced repair on a die without creating a massive and obvious bulge in the field of a struck coin. Far easier to fill the die locally, polish the die surface (field on the coin) and re-punch the necessary repair.

And I do agree re the HALP halfpenny, all those I have seen look very much like a flaw, especially when compared to the 1860 E over P penny which is clearly an erroneous repair with a clear clean loop of the P.

Some nice discussions over the last couple of days, Penny-wise.

Jerry

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. 

[DrLarry]

27 minutes ago, PWA 1967 said:

Why you have such a large group Larry can i ask you out of the eighty you have how many are PT please ?

Sorry if its not something you know off the top of your head but the PT is much scarcer and would guess at three out of eighty 

 

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 

[PWA 1967]

4 minutes ago, DrLarry said:

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 

Thank you.

There is also a 1853 with the large 5 which is a DOT between the I & A in GRATIA ,you may not be bothered but a variety that you also may have in such a large group.

[DrLarry]

3 minutes ago, PWA 1967 said:

Thank you.

There is also a 1853 with the large 5 which is a DOT between the I & A in GRATIA ,you may not be bothered but a variety that you also may have in such a large group.

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 

[DrLarry]

8 hours ago, PWA 1967 said:

Thank you.

There is also a 1853 with the large 5 which is a DOT between the I & A in GRATIA ,you may not be bothered but a variety that you also may have in such a large group.

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 

[DrLarry]

in one sheet they are all OT I do have one PT so far 1 in 20 and none with a dot large five 

Edited July 6, 2018 by DrLarry

[DrLarry]

10 hours ago, jelida said:

I doubt you could grind out the full depth of a misplaced repair on a die without creating a massive and obvious bulge in the field of a struck coin. Far easier to fill the die locally, polish the die surface (field on the coin) and re-punch the necessary repair.

And I do agree re the HALP halfpenny, all those I have seen look very much like a flaw, especially when compared to the 1860 E over P penny which is clearly an erroneous repair with a clear clean loop of the P.

Some nice discussions over the last couple of days, Penny-wise.

Jerry

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 

[Peckris]

21 minutes ago, DrLarry said:

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 

That would be impossible considering the enormous force with which the die hits the blank. The only way IMO is to repunch the erroneous letter, which would certainly leave some trace of the underlying letter. That is obviously not the case with the ONF penny for example, where it's a case of die fill through gradual process, not a stray piece of metal. Where a piece of metal does stick to the die - a brockage for example - it survives only for a single subsequent strike, which is why brockages are unique.

[DrLarry]

25 minutes ago, Peckris said:

That would be impossible considering the enormous force with which the die hits the blank. The only way IMO is to repunch the erroneous letter, which would certainly leave some trace of the underlying letter. That is obviously not the case with the ONF penny for example, where it's a case of die fill through gradual process, not a stray piece of metal. Where a piece of metal does stick to the die - a brockage for example - it survives only for a single subsequent strike, which is why brockages are unique.

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 

[Rob]

They must have been able to fill the die somehow. It clearly isn't a case of just dropping in a piece of metal the right size and hoping it stays. It would have to be a piece of soft metal that is physically hammered into the recesses and then the die put through the hardening process again.

The attached is my 1675 over 3 over 2 halfpenny, which has a continuous flat surface in the exergue and so the 2 was clearly not ground out before the 3 was entered. The 3 only marginally impacts on the 2 (the top curve of the 3), with the remainder cut into good metal. The 5 is made by adding a reversed z-type 1 to the curve. A raised trace of the bottom of the 2 base is still visible on the coin as is the general 2 profile, which gives 2 options. First is the 2 was removed on the coin with the die still retaining the original 2 detail - which is a non-starter. The second is that it was filled and recut, which I believe is the solution. 

This was also the method used by Taylor to make the 1807 proof halfpenny die, also shown somewhere on this forum. In that case though, the total number struck was small unlike the currency Charles II shown here.

Edited July 6, 2018 by Rob

[jelida]

44 minutes ago, DrLarry said:

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 

I understand this can be done but do not know for sure how, and I can’t remember where I came across it. Die letters do fill in use presumably with metal particles. I understood that the die recess could be filled with powdered metal/alloy of a fractionally lower melting point than the die metal, then the whole heated to the melting point of the fill followed by working/punching/polishing then annealing of the repaired die ready for use. But without a reference I cannot confirm this. Certainly a die is far too hard and thick to tap up from behind to replace any metal ground away from its surface.

Jerry

[DrLarry]

8 minutes ago, Rob said:

They must have been able to fill the die somehow. It clearly isn't a case of just dropping in a piece of metal the right size and hoping it stays. It would have to be a piece of soft metal that is physically hammered into the recesses and then the die put through the hardening process again.

The attached is my 1675 over 3 over 2 halfpenny, which has a continuous flat surface in the exergue and so the 2 was clearly not ground out before the 3 was entered. The 3 only marginally impacts on the 2 (the top curve of the 3), with the remainder cut into good metal. The 5 is made by adding a reversed z-type 1 to the curve. A raised trace of the bottom of the 2 base is still visible on the coin as is the general 2 profile, which gives 2 options. First is the 2 was removed on the coin with the die still retaining the original 2 detail - which is a non-starter. The second is that it was filled and recut, which I believe is the solution. 

This was also the method used by Taylor to make the 1807 proof halfpenny die, also shown somewhere on this forum. In that case though, the total number struck was small unlike the currency Charles II shown here.

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 

[DrLarry]

7 minutes ago, jelida said:

I understand this can be done but do not know for sure how, and I can’t remember where I came across it. Die letters do fill in use presumably with metal particles. I understood that the die recess could be filled with powdered metal/alloy of a fractionally lower melting point than the die metal, then the whole heated to the melting point of the fill followed by working/punching/polishing then annealing of the repaired die ready for use. But without a reference I cannot confirm this. Certainly a die is far too hard and thick to tap up from behind to replace any metal ground away from its surface.

Jerry

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. 

[jelida]

Just now, DrLarry said:

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. 

The die is made of iron/steel, and the infill would have to be adherent and hard. I have no idea what would be suitable. 

Jerry

[Rob]

It's a lot cheaper to fill a die and recut one character than it is to start from scratch. This applies whether it was a change of privy mark following the pyx, or a change in the calendar year. The mint was not a publicly funded institution with everyone salaried, rather the running costs came out of the sum given to the master of the mint who employed all those under him. Consequently, the cheapest remedy gave him the best return on his activities.

[DrLarry]

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 

[DrLarry]

15 minutes ago, jelida said:

The die is made of iron/steel, and the infill would have to be adherent and hard. I have no idea what would be suitable. 

Jerry

oh yes what am I thinking sorry a moment of temp insanity ......

[Rob]

3 minutes ago, jelida said:

The die is made of iron/steel, and the infill would have to be adherent and hard. I have no idea what would be suitable. 

Jerry

I would suggest a softened piece of the same metal used for the die. The presence of the bottom line on the 2 base above tells us that it isn't a perfectly flat fill. Maybe they used a 2 punch to hammer in the filler. The fact that die blockage is fairly persistent and progressive tells us that filling a character has a good chance of lasting long term.

[DrLarry]

14 minutes ago, Rob said:

It's a lot cheaper to fill a die and recut one character than it is to start from scratch. This applies whether it was a change of privy mark following the pyx, or a change in the calendar year. The mint was not a publicly funded institution with everyone salaried, rather the running costs came out of the sum given to the master of the mint who employed all those under him. Consequently, the cheapest remedy gave him the best return on his activities.

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> 

[DrLarry]

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?

[DrLarry]

here are some other candidates or red herrings