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Uniface Counterstruck cent BB-62 Battleship New Jersey token
NumisOxide
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Picked this up late last night on an impulse buy. Can't find much about this token. Only other one I found online sold for $100 in 2011.
Trying to find out when it may have been struck. The host cent is 1976 and the other one I found online is as well. So possibly then or a later date. Thought it was pretty neat.
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Not something I would consider paying anything close to $100 to obtain.
i've never seen one sell for more than 1/10th of that price. This is one of several types of overstrikes/overstamps done on Lincoln cents around the time of the U.S. Bicentennial.
For $4.34 I think I'll recover 😆
The Bicentennial makes sense. Thanks Tokenpro.
Here is the auction from 2011, where one sold for $100. https://www.icollector.com/1976-BATTLESHIP-NEW-JERSEY-BB-62-Naval-Token_i10213215
There was someone on this forum that new who struck these. Hopefully they will reply...or you could try searching the forum for a thread about them. Several different designs were counterstruck on Unc Lincoln’s cents from the late 70s.
Will do a search. Thank you Goldenegg!
I believe the piece was struck for one of the early attempts to move the USS New Jersey from the mothball fleet to a docking as a museum ship somewhere in New Jersey. This was finally accomplished a couple decades later after the New Jersey was activated a couple more times. Since 2000 she has been docked in Camden as a museum ship.
I thought this may be the reason too. Since it says "Bring Me Home".
I bought a couple of those in the original fundraiser back when they were issued. Not sure of the date. Maybe 1976 or a couple years later.
The sponsoring organization was trying to bring the battleship to NJ. As mentioned above, the plans got delayed when the WWII battleships were called back to active duty in the 1980s.
There were a few other unrelated issues by the same manufacturer at around the same time.
Great appreciate the information JBK! Thank you.
Likely the one that sold for $100 was to a Navy guy that either served on the ship or had a father, brother etc. who did....We Navy guys have a soft spot for memorabilia of our ship(s) that we served on. Cheers, RickO
When I was growing up we travelled between the SF Bay Area and northern California where I lived quite a lot. I-80 goes by Suisun Bay where the then Mothball fleet was anchored. Was rather cool being able to see famous battlecans from WWII sitting out there in the bay. Except for the four big battlecans, most of the fleet is now in the sky shipyard.
The late 70's is about right for that coin. I remember back in high school during that time there was a push to have it docked in Camden, NJ in the Delaware River as a museum. One of my friends who was really into the Navy worked really hard at a school fundraiser for it. You should've seen him when the ship got reactivated a few years later. He was besides himself, LOL....
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
That must have been a sight.
Back in the early 90s I wanted to get US flag flown over all four of the WWII battleships. One or two were already retired but the Navy base in charge of them still got the job done. (At least one may have been mothballed at Puget Sound in WA by then).
I still have the flag, of course, as well as the four letters from the respective ships confirming that it was flown.
Good afternoon, I'm new to the group, I have a similar coin, but a double hit appears on this one, will it be a genuine mistake?
Before you get too excited, mine are similar.
I think the underlying surface took on details from prior coins that were stuck. Subsequent coins then picked up that detail that had been impressed into the "anvil".
Congrats! Well worth it in my opinion
The Black Dragon is a great ship.
Thank you for yours comments, what intrigues me is that 2 busts of Lincol appear on my coin🤔🤭
I'm to thinking how these were made
to start in a different direction I'm going with elongated cents. they have a flat -- no design -- side and a design side. often the original details can be seen, particularly on the flat side, because of the patina and "dirt" present.
now to the above, what "strikes" me is there is no flat side without a design. so, how does the machine impress the image of the battleship onto one side and have what appears to be a consistently present 1976 cent obverse side.
I am going to propose that one side is the battleship side die and the other side is made with a 1976 cent obverse designed die and the double image on the lincoln side is from the patina and "dirt" on the original cent.
it sounds plausible, but does it fit with the pictures above and other known specimens?
I think you are over thinking it, but it did cause me to rethink it myself.
First I thought the NJ design was the hammer die in a hydraulic press coming down on the cent which was lying on a flat piece of steel. In that scenario the lower/anvil base picked up an impression from and earlier striking (coin being pressed against/into it).
But now, I'm think the NJ design might have been the lower/anvil die. The upper blank die that came down was the one that had picked up an impression from earlier strikes, and that was imparted to subsequent strikes.
I will say they are definitely no collar strikes
Start with a heavy press, an engraved battleship die, a quantity of BU cents and an assortment of blank metal sheets to use as “backing dies.”
Put the engraved die in the press and a plain backing die under it. Place a cent on the backing die and strike it. The back of the cent gets the battleship design and the front of the cent gets pushed down into the backing die. Put another cent face down in the impression turned a bit and strike it. It gets a normal battleship design and a doubled obverse. Repeat and get a tripled obverse. Eventually you change the backing die.
In 1991 my first wife and I were vacationing in Hawaii and happened to be up in the old Aloha Tower in Honolulu when the U.S.S. Missouri steamed by eastbound out from Pearl. It was glorious!
Thank you very much everyone for your comments, happy weekend 🙋♂️
considering the battleship side is not doubled I think it is safe to say it was not double struck in the machine
Unfortunately that's the way it is 😔