Brasher Doubloons by Ron Landis / Gallery Mint Museum

ZoidMeister

It's taken me a while to do the proper research to put this post together. You see, I found and purchased what I believed to be Ron Landis' Brasher Doubloon and Half Doubloon reproduction strikes.

The difficult part was attributing these pieces to him. Most photos I could find were of some other Brasher copy, and not Ron's. The other part was the sellers photos, as typical sellers photos go, weren't large enough or clear enough to verify. I had to wait until I had these in hand to begin.

The second hurdle was finding example photos of Ron's work. To me, the die engraving style was a dead giveaway, but unfortunately, that just wasn't enough. An opinion of style is just that . . . . .

Pouring through the old Gallery Mint and Vern Walfren's GMMNut websites were helpful with information, but not so much with images. Here is Ron's original article introducing the Brasher strikes, and a snippet from his sales catalog. It seems that Ron made these on "special order" so I suppose there weren't a lot of them lying around for photo opportunities.
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As you can see, not enough image quality for a positive identification.

However . . . . . . . .

I knew that the EB counterstamp used on these strikes was uniquely Landis, so when the opportunity to buy a pair of counterstamped Sacagawea Dollars presented itself, I had to jump on the opportunity. I've seen many, many pieces bearing either the RL or EB counterstamp. I knew that once I got the following pair in hand, looking for the unique signatures on the initials counterstamped into the Brasher reproductions would be all I would need for a positive identification.
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Here are the two Sacagawea Dollars with the counterstamps.
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All that I needed to do now, once the Doubloons and the Sacagawea's were in hand, was to compare the EB counterstamp on both.
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Here are the Brasher Doubloon and Half Doubloon reproductions.

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Even though much of the host coin remains under the EB initials counterstamp, to my eyes, there is a positive match.

The center horizontal line of the "E" with it's drooping serif is a feature unique to this coiner.
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Thanks for reading . . . . . . . . . .

Z
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Eternal thanks to @MWallace for his generous assistance to me in my research . . . . . .

MWallace

Great research and study. Congratulations.

ricko

Interesting research and well done. Cheers, RickO

NumisOxide

Awesome! Research pays off.

RichieURich

Nice job on the research! And, congratulations on acquiring these two rare coins!

tradedollarnut

Just curious- is COPY really required on those?

ZoidMeister

@tradedollarnut said:
Just curious- is COPY really required on those?

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I hear you. Not really a "government" issue. I would have LOVED them to be unmarked in that manner, but they are what they are, and I was exceedingly fortunate to have acquired them - all four coins for that matter.

I found a little more information from GMM on the Brasher strikes in my research. Seems mintage was fairly small - not Daniel Carr small, but small nonetheless for a GMM issued piece.

Z

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