I held a Fugio copper in my grubby hands today

airplanenut

I was looking through some of the long-time members of my collection today, and among the many slabs was my Fugio, raw in a flip, which I must have bought upwards of 20 years ago. It's a nice, wholesome coin, and while one day I'd like to get a higher-end example, it's been plenty satisfying to me for all these years. And because it was in a flip and in no condition where I'm worried that handling it will cause any degradation in its quality, I took it out and and held it for a little bit. It's got plenty of wear, so a lot of people must have held it before me. I appreciate slabs for many reasons, but it's always nice to have a chance to really hold a piece of history.

silverpop

Dave99B

I get it. Great coin!

Dave

RobertScotLover

I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but I do not believe it is real. Please check out the what is supposed to be a rose petal above "We" on the reverse. Yours isn't a rose petal with 5 round petals surrounding the center. The sun on the obverse also looks to have issues, haven't reviewed the rest of the item due to to lack of time. Or maybe a new variety. Worthy of discussion tho.

NewEnglandRarities

@RobertScotLover said:
I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but I do not believe it is real. Please check out the what is supposed to be a rose petal above "We" on the reverse. Yours isn't a rose petal with 5 round petals surrounding the center. The sun on the obverse also looks to have issues, haven't reviewed the rest of the item due to to lack of time. Worthy of discussion tho.

Most certainly an authentic Fugio. The variety is 15-Y which is known as the “8 Pointed Star” variety, a major type in the series. This is about as nice as one could hope for in this condition (VF 20/25). A lovely example!

RobertScotLover

@NewEnglandRarities said:

@RobertScotLover said:
I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but I do not believe it is real. Please check out the what is supposed to be a rose petal above "We" on the reverse. Yours isn't a rose petal with 5 round petals surrounding the center. The sun on the obverse also looks to have issues, haven't reviewed the rest of the item due to to lack of time. Worthy of discussion tho.

Most certainly an authentic Fugio. The variety is 15-Y which is known as the “8 Pointed Star” variety, a major type in the series. This is about as nice as one could hope for in this condition (VF 20/25). A lovely example!

Learn something every day here. Is it an extreme rarity by chance. I never heard of such a die marriage before.
Much appreciated.

NewEnglandRarities

It’s a fairly common variety. I believe R-3. It is also a major Red Book type. It carries a small premium as it is a very popular type.

RobertScotLover

Thanks. I only own one example from the New York Bank hoard. Would you know how they were cleaned?

airplanenut

@NewEnglandRarities said:

@RobertScotLover said:
I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but I do not believe it is real. Please check out the what is supposed to be a rose petal above "We" on the reverse. Yours isn't a rose petal with 5 round petals surrounding the center. The sun on the obverse also looks to have issues, haven't reviewed the rest of the item due to to lack of time. Worthy of discussion tho.

Most certainly an authentic Fugio. The variety is 15-Y which is known as the “8 Pointed Star” variety, a major type in the series. This is about as nice as one could hope for in this condition (VF 20/25). A lovely example!

Phew. Good thing we got a Eugene Upper (let’s be honest here… there aren’t that many U names to go with) here to chime in before I got back to the thread 😃

lcutler

That is a very nice one. I've got a few but yours is better than any of mine. That is exactly what I would like to upgrade to, nice! I've got two 15-Y examples, in addition to the star on the reverse another pick up point is the die crack on the lower right of the sun dial.

yosclimber

@RobertScotLover said:

@NewEnglandRarities said:

@RobertScotLover said:
I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but I do not believe it is real. Please check out the what is supposed to be a rose petal above "We" on the reverse. Yours isn't a rose petal with 5 round petals surrounding the center. The sun on the obverse also looks to have issues, haven't reviewed the rest of the item due to to lack of time. Worthy of discussion tho.

Most certainly an authentic Fugio. The variety is 15-Y which is known as the “8 Pointed Star” variety, a major type in the series. This is about as nice as one could hope for in this condition (VF 20/25). A lovely example!

Learn something every day here. Is it an extreme rarity by chance. I never heard of such a die marriage before.
Much appreciated.

You can learn more about the ~57 known die pairs by taking a look at this thread:
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1030881/online-fugio-cent-attribution-guide
You can see the reverse on the 15-Y is described as having the 8-pointed stars.

CaptHenway

A lovely example of a real coin. You did right by holding it.

jerseyben

I'm not really sure why this would be anything but genuine. Nice piece.

Windycity

Very nice example!!

johnny9434

a nice looking coin i like

NewEnglandRarities

@RobertScotLover said:
Thanks. I only own one example from the New York Bank hoard. Would you know how they were cleaned?

Not all of the Bank of NY Fugio’s were cleaned. Many on the marketplace in UNC (almost all of the UNCs, especially ones with mint red remaining), are from the Bank of NY vault).

Now, they used to give out Fugios in a lucite holder engraved to a partner or employee with the bank as gifts. All of those were cleaned (pretty badly) before they were encased in lucite to make them look shinier and bolder in the lucite. Many of these have been broken out of the lucite and retoned. How they cleaned them in the first place I don’t know, but I’m sure it was a fairly simple method. As a note, remaining examples in lucite are quite collectible themselves as they are quite rare to find today.

RobertScotLover

Thank you NER.

divecchia

Nice Fugio. I have a couple of raw coins myself, just so I can hold them once in a while. I don't have anything raw that is this old though.

Thanks for sharing it.

Donato

Cameonut

All I gotta say is that you are probably not the only person with grubby hands that handled that Fugio.....
Nice piece of history.

kaz

Nice Fugio! I have a couple of raw ones too; would like to take one and spend the night at Abel Buell's house ( a B&B last time I checked)