Unlisted 1857 Flying Eagle Cud
Windycity
Posts: 3,501 ✭✭✭✭✭
Checked the "Cuds on Coins" site and don't see any listing for this one. Anyone familiar with this cud?
<a target=new class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.mullencoins.com">Mullen Coins Website - Windycity Coin website
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Snow S9 clash from 50c, very well known
LINK
this is one that is part of the whole 1857 clashing shenanigans across a few type coins obv and rev.
Not a cud, a die clash from a seated half dollar!
Wow... wouldn't have guessed that when looking at the circulated coin!!
+1, amazing how much it looks like a retrained cud.
I sold one of these a couple months ago that I bought misattributed as a die break.
Interestingly - the first Cud book in 1969 did not have this piece listed.
The 2nd Edition, 1979, did list it as a Retained Cud !
I believe I saw one of these at an Error Club of Hollywood meeting
around 1968/69 or so, and also assumed it was a retained cud.
That was decades before the new research showed it was actually
for PCGS. A 49+-Year PNG Member...A full numismatist since 1972, retired in 2022
...a die clash from a 50C Die!
for PCGS. A 49+-Year PNG Member...A full numismatist since 1972, retired in 2022
Has anyone ever seen an 1857 cent/half mule? There are several odd clash pairings. Seems like someone would have dropped a planchet or two in there.
That "research" was me sitting next to Bill Fivaz at the big error collectors get together at the Atlanta ANA in 1977. Bill was showing me his new toys and he handed me an AU or Unc. one of these and said "What's this?" I stared at it for about 20 minutes and all of the sudden the image of a Seated Liberty obverse, backwards, popped into my head. I said "The obverse die was clashed with a Seated Liberty half or quarter dollar obverse" and he damn near fell off his chair!
After I got back to Sidney I went through the Clearinghouse files and found that worn pieces from that obverse had been published at least two times before as a "Whatzit?" but nobody had ever figured it out.
TD
Nope. No surviving mules are know of any of the dual denomination clash marks.
Tom... great detective work!!
Wow.... I would never have thought of that.... but once you see it.... Great analysis. Cheers, RickO
@CaptHenway
Please explain to a novice how a $.50 obverse can end up on a one cent coin and thanks in advance.
"I spent 50% of my money on alcohol, women, and gambling. The other half I wasted.
That is the $64,000 question. Some people believe that it is theoretically possible that in the normal day-to-day operations of the Mint, while a particular coin press was being switched over from striking one denomination to striking another denomination, a die setter might change one side but forget to change the other before he cycled the press somehow and clashed the dies together. In this scenario no mules were struck, but the injured dies stayed in the die inventory and were eventually used to strike otherwise normal coins.
Then there are grizzled cynics like myself who believe that somebody inside the Mint, generally referred to as "The Midnight Minter," was deliberately mis-matching dies to make fake errors that he could sell into the numismatic market. The chief suspect is a night watchman named Theodore Eckfeldt. Adam Eckfeldt was very instrumental in getting the Mint going back in 1792, and he eventually served as Chief Coiner. His numerous descendants worked at various U.S. Mints until well into the 20th Century.
Theodore Eckfeldt is the chief suspect in the striking of multiple plain edge Class Two 1804 silver dollars circa 1858. As the story goes, when a coin dealer in Philadelphia complained that somebody at the Mint was selling 1804 dollars around town, the Mint's administration, which included various Eckfeldts, went out and bought the coins back and executed a successful cover-up of their creation. Then about a decade later the insiders at the Mint took all but one of the plain edge Class Two Dollars, lettered their edges, and discretely sold them to collectors where they are now called Class Three Dollars.
The Eckfeldt clan would have had the means, the motive and the opportunity to cover-up Theodore's (hypothetical) clandestine activities, and that cover-up could have involved buying back fake errors that were quietly destroyed. However, the 1804 dollars were too valuable to destroy, so they sat on a shelf for a while and then left the Mint for a second time.
As for the "honest changeover of dies error" theory, watch for news of an 1858 dual-denomination "error" that will knock your socks off!
TD
Tom – thanks for filling out that story about how you figured it out – I love it!
for PCGS. A 49+-Year PNG Member...A full numismatist since 1972, retired in 2022
Awesome explanation. Thank you for taking the time to explain it.
"I spent 50% of my money on alcohol, women, and gambling. The other half I wasted.
@CaptHenway.... Thanks for the history and analysis.... No doubt a lot more 'hanky panky' went on that we still do not know about... and likely never will. Cheers, RickO