The Very First Eisenhower Dollar Known - The Charles Chatham Specimen
Zoins
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Recently there was some discussion on the Charles Chatham prototype Eisenhower dollar that led to a discussion of the production order of the prototypes. @SPalladino mentioned the similarities of the serifs on the Chatham specimen to the galvano which kicked off an effort to identify which Ike variety, DMR-038 or DMR-039 was struck first.
From the available information, it looks like the Chatham specimen may be both the first prototype known and perhaps the first Ike dollar known. There are no patterns of the Ike dollar listed in USPatterns.com, so the working prototypes may be the very first of all Ike dollar coins.
Check out the article on Mint Error News:
Prototype Eisenhower Dollars Considering the Chatham Specimen as the First Prototype Variety
Here's the TrueView of the Chatham specimen:
The article includes information on a number of areas including relief and die finishing, but perhaps the most interesting is the visual analysis of the "R" in LIBERTY showing a progression from the galvano and Chatham specimens with pronounced serifs, to the Lydston and eBay specimens with minimal serifs, and finally the production 1971-S proof "peg leg" and "funny foot" varieties. It's a very interesting progression and shows that the Chatham specimen is most like the galvano.
Comments
Interesting. Thanks!
Superbly written and very informative.
Thanks for the article for Mint Error News.
Very interesting... Thanks for the information and the link. Cheers, RickO
Cool. Are there any pics like that for the earth?
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Not yet as the earth is the same for all 3 prototype specimens, but it could be interesting to create one to compare with the galvano and production issues.
@Zoins Yes especially where there are 3 ( I think ) different earths on regular production coins.
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This is very illuminating. Thanks
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Thanks Mike! Mint Error News is a great place to publish articles like this!
Admittedly I don’t know much about Ike’s but I was interested and checked out lot viewing in both this year’s special Ike and last year’s special Ike and to tell you the truth I liked last year’s better from a purely eye appeal point of view. This year’s special Ike has a number of small abrasions on the cheek and in the fields that I found distracting- last year’s was a stunner.