JR Newsletter: 16 October 2016 (315)

An announcement from Glenn Peterson serves as our sole contribution for the week and as a response to Winston Zack's inquiry from the last newsletter:

JRCS members:

     I will be chairing the JRCS meeting at the Baltimore Whitman show on November 4th at 4:30 pm. We will be in room 301. I will be discussing the Bust Quarter census which will appear in the next journal. Please come and join us for the meeting.

Glenn Peterson MD

JR Newsletter: 9 October 2016 (314)

We have a few contributions this week. 

First, Ralph Muñoz wrote about the Kolbe and Fanning Book Sale #143:

I just received my catalog in the mail yesterday.  Kobe & Fanning Numismatic Booksellers (http://www.numislit.com/) is offering a complete set of the John Reich Journal Vols. 1-24 (Whole Numbers 1-74), plus the first two issues of Vol. 25 including the index volumes after Vols. 10 and 20.  Estimate $500.  

Plus there are other interesting books for those members looking to add some hard to get reference materials to their libraries.

Ralph Munoz

JRCS #30

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Winston Zack inquired:

Will the JRCS have a meeting and/or educational presentation at the Baltimore show next month?

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Pete Mosiondz, Jr. wrote:

I was pleased to obtain a very nice coin recently and would like to share some thoughts with our friends. 

More often than not when I look at an encapsulated coin I say to myself, “How did they arrive at that determination?” Most of the time I feel that a particular coin is overgraded. 

I remember meeting Abe Kosoff many years ago when I was beginning to dabble in coins as a part-time dealer. I asked him for some guidance based on his many years of experience. He was very gracious and spent quite a bit of time with me, more than I could have ever hoped for. The one thing that always stayed in my mind was his strong opinion on grading. This was before he became involved with organizing the American Numismatic Association Certification Service. He told me to always look at a coin objectively and not with rose-colored glasses. He suggested recognizing and evaluating the coin’s negative aspects (detractions and imperfections) then recognizing and evaluating the coin’s positive aspects (strengths). Evaluate the overall eye appeal. Does it look nice or maybe not so nice? Finally, and most importantly, always be conservative in your grading. In other words never “stretch” the grade. 

At the time we were using Brown and Dunn or Jim Ruddy’s new Photograde book. Abe was adapting the Sheldon grading system for other coins as well, especially in his auction sales.

 I must say that the professional graders who graded the 1823 Capped Bust Half Dollar (image below), that I happily obtained from a dealer friend recently, must have had Abe’s thoughts in mind. I thought to myself, “Why isn’t this an AU coin?” Do you agree, or am I wearing rose-colored glasses? By the way, it is an O-105.

Pete Mosiondz, Jr.
Email: choochoopete(at)comcast.net

JR Newsletter: 2 October 2016 (313)

Jim Matthews wrote:

I finally acquired a nice AU55 example of one of the more common cuds known for my dime collection from the coins sold by W. David Perkins of the Kirk Gorman Collection. The variety I found so challenging is the 1833 JR-4. Actually a low grade example of this variety was one of my first retained cuds purchased. My friend Don Valenziano heard of my budding interest in these late die state coins and showed me this fabulous example with the reverse die broken and moving in three connecting pieces from the E in UNITED down to the scroll and all along the upper portion of that side to the first A in AMERICA. Despite the wear, this is still one of the latest examples I've seen with the initial retained cud from the left side to the edge of A in STATES, another crack down through the E of that word, and the final crack splitting the first A of AMERICA, all these cracks connect to the scroll from the rim above.

Over the decades I've acquired about 30 examples in varying states of decay of the 1833 JR-4 with a retained cud. I've since sold back a few into the market place. I began to think myself somewhat obsessed with studying the varying die states of this variety, but then encountered other collectors who had acquired extensive hoards with similar penchants for certain dates or varieties, and realized its all part of the scholarship of this hobby and not so much a question of my sanity.

Over the past few years I've been working on getting my Capped Bust dimes graded by PCGS, it's a laborious process as many coins simply aren't worth the cost of grading, so those remain in their natural raw state. Others I've sent in for this process. One of these was my 1833 JR-4 with a retained cud (actually a fairly early example of this cud) from the Russell J. Logan Collection which graded XF40, a nice grade for that coin. I also had another decent example with the retained cud that came back VF30 from PCGS that I'm going to sell. So at long last I have a solid AU55 example to represent this seemingly common cud in my collection.

Jim

JR Newsletter: 25 September 2016 (312)

 

 

 

This week, we have a contribution from Mike McDaniel and another Monterey Bay, CA  JRCS member:

 

"It is with sincere sadness that we inform you of the recent passing of fellow JRCS member Al Wood.  After retirement from his job in the aerospace industry in the Silicon Valley in 2015, Al opened "Al's Coins" in Scotts Valley, CA.  Al will be fondly remembered for his friendliness, honesty, sense of humor, and love of numismatics, especially Capped Bust Half Dollars.  Rest in Peace, Al."

 

 

Thanks,

 

Mike McDaniel

JR Newsletter: 18 September 2016 (311)

This must be the season of bust coin doldrums.  No contributions again this week, so please enjoy a photo of my brother holding the first salmon he ever caught (this is a pink salmon, also known as a "humpy" -- for obvious reasons)

-Editor

JR Newsletter: 11 September 2016 (310)

We received no contributions for this week's JR Newsletter, so please enjoy this photo of my daughter's first halibut.

- Editor

JR Newsletter: 4 September 2016 (309)

This newsletter is a bit late, but somebody has to catch those fish in Alaska, and it might as well be me!  I was out for the last few days fishing on the Kenai Peninsula with my brother.  Halibut, trout, and salmon were the targets for his visit and we succeeded.  Enough of that, on to the coins!

Jerry Zonca wrote:
 

I was helping a friend at the Blue Ridge Numismatic Association annual show this past weekend in Dalton, GA when he mentioned a counterfeit 1816 CBHD that he purchased several years ago at a show in Dalton. We talked about it for awhile and I asked if he kept the pictures that he took of the coin. After searching his pics he emailed them to me. Barry Ciociola mentioned that this is only the second counterfeit 1816 that he has seen in all of his years as a dealer.
 

Later at the same show he sold it to another dealer. I have attached the pics that he sent to me (see images below). They were taken with a cell phone camera, so, the quality is not very good.
 

Jerry Zonca

BHNC# 150

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 David Perkins wrote:
 

Last week I wrote about a 1799 Dollar “Counterstamped with the head of Benjamin Franklin” that was listed on a 1943 invoice from B. G. Johnson to F.C.C. Boyd  that I had come across on the Newman Numismatic Portal.  I’m happy to report that three people wrote me, all with related responses.  It appears that a Civil War Token Die was used to strike this “portrait of Ben Franklin”  onto the obverse of a 1799 Dollar.  I wrote,

The last item on the invoice was a 1799 Silver Dollar, “Counterstamped with head of Benjamin Franklin.”  It was called Very fine, and sold for $40.00.  If anyone knows anything about this important counterstamped Dollar, please contact me at wdperki(at)attglobal.net .  I have never seen or heard of this, despite a  strong interest in counterstamped Early Dollars 1794-1803. 

From John Okerson:

I found it in The Medals of Franklin by Phil W. Greenslet edited by David E. Schenkman of 1993 by Token and Medal Society, Inc. page 212 as item GT-705.  The description says “(same as GT-701; struck on U.S. 1799 silver dollar) (blank except for coin design) silver 39 mm, R-10 (Fuld Civil War token 153/B1)”. 

I looked at Fuld’s Photographic Plates for Patriotic Civil War Tokens, Volume 1 and found what appears to be the counterstamp token on Plate VI as number 153.  This is a recent addition to NNP, so you should be able to download it there quite easily.   

 From Roger Lalich: 

 This is a civil war token die.

 See Civil War Token Society Journal vol. 6, no. 2, page 46 (available on Newman Portal).

From David Gladfelter:

David, this coin (or token) is listed in the current  (fifth) edition of the Fuld patriotic Civil War token catalog as die combination 153/0, overstruck on a silver planchet (code fo), rarity R10 (unique), with comment "over 1799 U.S. dollar". In the current (second) edition of the "Official Red Book Guide Book of Civil War Tokens," page 130, Q. David Bowers notes that die 153, which is only 18mm in diameter, has been used to make "numismatic strikes", still exists, and "has been used to make modern strikings." Most notably, ANA president J. Henri Ripstra used it to strike a personal token in aluminum or white metal that was distributed at the 1939 ANA convention in New York City. Because of the small size of this die, it would be more correct to call the 153/0 a counterstamp than an overstrike.

I thank everyone for their interest and assistance!  Thanks.

W. David Perkins
Centennial, CO