Let’s weigh our mint state 1794 Dollars!

MrEureka

It seems too coincidental that the earliest known piece is the only one that was plugged, presumably to bring it up to the proper weight. It would be interesting to know if some or all of the other MS examples are slightly underweight, and if the Mint just couldn’t be bothered bringing them up to weight.

BillJones

I believe that the mint plugged 1795 Flowing Hair Dollars also to bring them up to the standard weight.

At any rate, weighing things is hard these days, given that they are all in slabs.

Doesn't the finest known example of the 1794 in SP-66 have both a plug to bring up the weight and adjustment marks to bring the weight down?

Crypto

@BillJones said:
I believe that the mint plugged 1795 Flowing Hair Dollars also to bring them up to the standard weight.

At any rate, weighing things is hard these days, given that they are all in slabs.

Doesn't the finest known example of the 1794 in SP-66 have both a plug to bring up the weight and adjustment marks to bring the weight down?

Speaks to the hand made nature of a specimen no? Also that it might just be the first as they had figured nothing out yet and tried too hard to make it perfect.

Namvet69

Might there be recorded weights as part of the grading process prior to slabbing?

Nic

That would be very interesting Andy. Can I attend the weigh in if I buy drinks? With the small number of coins it shouldn't take long.

TomB

"Let's weigh our mint state 1794 Dollars!"

This should be a short thread...

jayPem

Happy to oblige, I'll weigh all mine just as soon as I get home.

coinkat

It is with my deepest regrets that I am unable to participate.

tradedollarnut

Been there, done that

Coinosaurus

Great question.

Obviously more overhead for the services, but weighing significant coins should be SOP regardless if the submitter requests it.

lkenefic

If I had an MS 1794 Dollar the only thing I'd be "weighing" are which auction house I'd be going to and where to retire after I sell...

Insider3

@Namvet69 said:
Might there be recorded weights as part of the grading process prior to slabbing?

Only some of us weigh coins for authenticity because around the late 1970's we found that the deceptive counterfeit gold usually was closer to what it was suppose to be than the genuine examples. I have been recording coin weights ever since then. Unfortunately, forty years of research was lost in one box during a move. I like to think one of the movers was a coin collector. Aside from what I just posted, I have found that even down to XF coins tend to weigh closer to the norm than what you might think from circulation.

PS when I worked at ANACS we weighed and photographed every coin. Those records may exist in CO. All the INSAB records (weight and photos) were lost when Charles Hoskins died. I was told his daughter tried to give them to the ANA and she was told NO ONE THERE KNEW WHO HE WAS!! I sent in an obituary notice to the national coin publications when I found out he had died several months after the fact. To my knowledge the ANA never acknowledged the death of their first Director of ANACS while it was located in DC. Possibly because Hoskins remained in DC and was one of the principals of a competing second authentication service (which also became the first grading service beating ANACS by several months).

The Breen book is useful for the weights of colonials. I think a very helpful thread would be to state the date, variety, and grade of every undamaged early dollar still raw.

Authentication tip: very often die struck fakes are seen with their rims filed to get the weight correct.