2 New Frosty Franklin Cherrypicks.....

SanctionII

...... from the mid 1950s.

Picked them up at a local show yesterday. The 1955 has what appear to be interesting die polishing lines on the Liberty Bell.

bearcave

Nice!

joeykoins

Cool Cameos!

TurtleCat

Great cameos! Makes my 54 and 55 box proof look really sad... unless it’s cameo and I can’t see it (haven’t removed it from original cello)

SkyMan

Fun 55.

MarkInDavis

55 looks particularly nice.

Hemispherical

@SanctionII said:
...... from the mid 1950s.

Picked them up at a local show yesterday. The 1955 has what appear to be interesting die polishing lines on the Liberty Bell.

This is one!

DiggerJim

@SanctionII said:
...... from the mid 1950s.

Picked them up at a local show yesterday. The 1955 has what appear to be interesting die polishing lines on the Liberty Bell.

I wonder how those lines would have been put there inside the bell and not touch the field. The field looks untouched and beautiful. Any comments or reasons are welcomed to improve my still limited knowledge.

DiggerJim

keets

I wonder how those lines would have been put there inside the bell and not touch the field.

they look more like hairlines than die polish and if they are it would mean that the coin probably came from a box set. they will affect the grade but not the designation.

Jimnight

NIce

DiggerJim

If they are indeed hairlines, how do you think they got there. Just asking because they look odd to me mainly where they are.

DiggerJim

ricko

Very nice Franklins....could not tell what caused the lines on the reverse of the '55....Cheers, RickO

Cameonut

The bell on the '55 exhibits classic die polish lines from a frustrated and aggressive employee when refurbishing the die. Would love to see the coin in person to confirm.

To understand die polishing, think of what the die surface looks like. It is the opposite of the coin surface. The devices are incused below the surface and the mirrored fields are flat and the highest point. Back in the day, when dies lost their ability to create cameos, they were refinished. Several means were used to recreate the roughened cameo surfaces on the die, including wire brushes and polishing compounds. Should the fields get marred - no problem! Remember the fields are flat and the highest point on the die. So it was super simple to repolish the fields back to mirror status.

DiggerJim

@Cameonut said:
The bell on the '55 exhibits classic die polish lines from a frustrated and aggressive employee when refurbishing the die. Would love to see the coin in person to confirm.

To understand die polishing, think of what the die surface looks like. It is the opposite of the coin surface. The devices are incused below the surface and the mirrored fields are flat and the highest point. Back in the day, when dies lost their ability to create cameos, they were refinished. Several means were used to recreate the roughened cameo surfaces on the die, including wire brushes and polishing compounds. Should the fields get marred - no problem! Remember the fields are flat and the highest point on the die. So it was super simple to repolish the fields back to mirror status.

Wow thank you. Now that makes perfect sense. Did not know that the fields could be repolished that perfectly. Those guys must be good.

Thanks

DiggerJim

SanctionII

The lines on the Liberty Bell on the 1955 half are some of the heaviest I have seen. Abusively so.

They are located only on a portion of the bell. They do not extend into the fields.

Most of the lines are vertical, however there are additional diagonal lines located on the lower left quadrant of the bell. These diagonal lines do not show up well in the posted photo.

The 1955 half dollar has fantastic contrast between the frosted devices and the deep, clean, mirrored fields. There are a couple of hairlines in the obverse fields that reveal themselves only when tilted in the light just so.

The 1956 half has very heavy frost on both sides, but as is often true with 1956 half dollars, the fields are not deeply mirrored. The dies and/or planchet were not polished enough to create black, mirrored fields. In addition the fields have developed some haze or spots the may or may not come off.

Thanks for the comments folks.

Dkillett

Very Nice.

NorCalJack

Nice coins. I really like the 55.

WaterSport

Great picks.

WS

SanctionII

Well today I was browsing internet listings of slabbed 1955 Proof Franklin half dollars in an attempt to find other such coins that have frosted devices and die polishing lines on the Liberty Bell that are similar if not identical to those present in the 55 Proof half dollar I picked up at a local show last Friday.

I looked the website for David Lawrence Rare Coins and have found that it is listing for sale a PCGS 1955 PF68 DCAM half dollar for sale that previously was owned by Mr. Hansen. That coin has a reverse that looks similar, if not identical, to my new 55 half dollar. The die polishing lines on both coins possibly support the conclusion that both coins were struck from the same reverse die.

Very, very interesting.

Prior to purchasing my 55 Proof half dollar last week I had not seen any 55 Proof half dollar with that type of severe die polishing on the Liberty Bell. 6 days later I have found another one on line.

johnny9434

awesome

WaterSport

Its the life of a cherry picker indeed...

WS

Bigbuck1975

Here us yours up top with The Hansen example below it.

SanctionII

Thanks Bigbuck1975 for posting photos of both coins.

Side by side the die polishing lines look identical to me.

What say you, fellow forumites?

ModCrewman

The Hansen coin and Sanction's are the same coin... @SanctionII just prefers his coins raw so he cracked it out to hold in his hoarding little hands.

They unquestionably were struck from the same die. I initially sided with @Keets with leaning towards being hairlines, but the existence of another rules that out. Do you think your 55 has enough obverse contrast to warrant a DCAM? From your image I would not think so, but we know images can hide a lot.

SanctionII

Don.

I have no idea.

In hand I think my new 55 half dollar would warrant a Cameo designation. But then I look at photos in Coinfacts and see DCAM coins that have frost similar to that on my new coin.

In hand my new 55 half has better quality fields than those shown in the photo of the ex Hansen coin.

I guess I should submit my new coin for grading.

SanctionII

Attached are additional photos of the 55 half taken under better lighting conditions.

ChrisH821

@DiggerJim said:

@SanctionII said:
...... from the mid 1950s.

Picked them up at a local show yesterday. The 1955 has what appear to be interesting die polishing lines on the Liberty Bell.

I wonder how those lines would have been put there inside the bell and not touch the field. The field looks untouched and beautiful. Any comments or reasons are welcomed to improve my still limited knowledge.

DiggerJim

It's just the way they refinished the dies. The evidence indicates to me that they went over them with a wire brush and then polished the fields and that's why there aren't lines on them. I assume this was to give the dies back some cameo contrast.
However on this one it looks more localized, so I would assume some sort of local repair/tooling was needed.

SanctionII

The 1955 Proof half I cherrypicked that is the subject of this thread recently graded PF66 CAM.

Would be nice to see it next the the Hansen PF68 DCAM

Treashunt

@SanctionII said:
Don.

I have no idea.

In hand I think my new 55 half dollar would warrant a Cameo designation. But then I look at photos in Coinfacts and see DCAM coins that have frost similar to that on my new coin.

In hand my new 55 half has better quality fields than those shown in the photo of the ex Hansen coin.

I guess I should submit my new coin for grading.

Oops, I just saw the date on the OP