Another one for my hat!
lordmarcovan
Posts: 43,654 ✭✭✭✭✭
This makes three of these, now 
The other coins on the hat are:
-1853 USA gold dollar (average)
-1861 USA gold dollar (nice)
-1834 USA Classic Head $2.50 (nice)
-1856-S USA $2.50 Lib (nice)
-1778 gold ducat from some obscure German State I forget the name of (not so nice, but it was cheap)
-1789 British "Spade" type half guinea (decent)
-1787 British sixpence (actually a silver coin gilded by some unscrupulous character to resemble a half guinea of the above type)
-1790's British "Spade Guinea" counterfeit (a brass gaming token made to resemble the coin- I shined it up nice and purty so it looks gold, heehee)
-Copy of a Turkish or Ottoman gold coin in gilt brass
Maybe another one or two- I forget. Just started the hat this summer.
The other coins on the hat are:
-1853 USA gold dollar (average)
-1861 USA gold dollar (nice)
-1834 USA Classic Head $2.50 (nice)
-1856-S USA $2.50 Lib (nice)
-1778 gold ducat from some obscure German State I forget the name of (not so nice, but it was cheap)
-1789 British "Spade" type half guinea (decent)
-1787 British sixpence (actually a silver coin gilded by some unscrupulous character to resemble a half guinea of the above type)
-1790's British "Spade Guinea" counterfeit (a brass gaming token made to resemble the coin- I shined it up nice and purty so it looks gold, heehee)
-Copy of a Turkish or Ottoman gold coin in gilt brass
Maybe another one or two- I forget. Just started the hat this summer.
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Comments
Aren't you afraid of either getting mugged or eventually having your head dissappear into your neck from the weight?
JK!!
Coinguy- I only get to wear the whole getup once or twice a year, and there is usually security on the bourse floor at shows, which is the only time I wear it. The hat ain't heavy (yet), but the vest, which has a mostly-completed 1800-1857 large cent set on the back, is no lightweight affair. It's probably about as heavy as the light chainmail shirt Lord M would wear beneath his plate armor. The large cents on the back of the vest are a sort of counterweight to the stuff on the front- without coins on both sides, it would pull down and hang funny.
That outfit would make you easy to see and hear at a show.
Ebay certainly makes it easier to find stuff like that.
Years ago I had a holed Ty 1 gold. A lady wanted a pair of earrings made if I could find another. Never did so finally sold the piece for melt.
Got quoins?
Nobody'll hafta worry about me creeping up and catching them by surprise, that's for sure.
You should have heard the lady I met outside the last FUN show- she got genuinely upset with me for "drilling holes in all those poor coins"!
I had to explain that the holes themselves were all 100+ years old. I don't drill my own. That's cheating.
Occasionally, if I find a holed coin that somebody has amateurishly "repaired", like that 1856-S $2.50, I'll drill the plug back out of it. And one large cent on the back had a hole somebody started, which I finished for them. Even the buttons on the vest are nasty old Flying Eagles, Indian cents, and Shield nickels that my detecting buddy found. I did drill all but one of those, because I needed two holes, to sew them on as buttons. They were truly awful already- heavily encrusted- so I put 'em in the rock tumbler and shined 'em up before I drilled 'em. Had they not already been practically worthless and barely identifiable, I wouldn't have had the heart to drill 'em. (Even braddick would have shunned them for the corrosion). But shined up, they make nice buttons.
I adopt wounded coins that have languished, unloved and unappreciated, in people's junkboxes for decades, and give them a good home. Now they can be appreciated as things of beauty instead of reviled as damaged goods. Some of the coins are quite high grade and attractive, but for the holes, and would be worth real money if undamaged. (A few of them are still worth real money even as-is.)
You said
<< <i>Occasionally, if I find a holed coin that somebody has amateurishly "repaired", like that 1856-S $2.50, I'll drill the plug back out of it. >>
I take that to mean you like coins in their "originally holed" state of preservation.
<< <i>Ebay certainly makes it easier to find stuff like that. >>
No kiddin'. This would have taken at least 15-20 years without eBay searches. I've only been doing it a little over two years, and have more holeys than I could ever possibly use, so now I get very selective. The vest idea was not mine, but I pioneered the use of fishing swivels, instead of sewing the coins directly to the vest. This enables 'em to swing around and show both sides, and it also allows them to be added, removed, or rearranged easily- snap 'em off, then snap 'em back on. I also added some semiprecious gemstone beads to the hat and as fillers on the back, for the large cents I don't have yet.
<< <i>I take that to mean you like coins in their "originally holed" state of preservation. >>
Absolutely. There IS such a thing as a "Premium Quality" hole- this is a hole that was neatly drilled with a small bit, not punched, at the 12:00 position of the coin, so it will hang upright on at least one side. (For foreign coins with medal rotation, both sides will be right-side-up). I don't like large, ragged, or poorly-placed holes. Holes at the center of a coin are usually no good, since you can't attach such a coin to a fishing swivel. (I do not use coins that were made with holes, or I would have 200 pounds of Chinese cash on me). I have some coins that were obviously holed with the old square nails, which makes a rectangular hole. Kinda interesting. What good does plugging a hole in a coin do? It's still a problem coin. You might as well leave it holed, so you can sew it onto your clothing and start a collection you can wear! Also, it is refreshing to collect coins that you don't have to be paranoid about. Cleaned? No problem. Retoned? Cool, especially if it adds colors. Anything goes, though some rules of eye appeal still apply. The best holey coin is the one that is a "heartbreaker" for other collectors- lovely in all regards except the hole. Others say, "Oh, what a shame!" I say, "Oh, what a beauty! That would look great on the vest!"
<< <i>Holey Cow! How do you get through security at the airport? >>
I don't. I drive to Orlando, or Raleigh, or Jacksonville, or Atlanta. The last time I flew, it was on Piedmont Airlines, and nobody knew who Saddam Hussein was, if that gives you any idea.
Love tokens are cool. I have a few on there, mostly Seated dimes. Counterstamps are neat, too- I have an EF-AU-ish Trade dollar with a counterstamp (not a chopmark, though that would be cool, too.) One of the large cents on the back of the vest (the 1834, I think) was made into a "naughty" coin when somebody reengraved the word "cent" by changing the E to a U!
I only use pre-1900 coins on the vest. The earliest was an English halfgroat of Elizabeth I, ca. 1561-62. But a Darkside forum member in Bulgaria sent me a beautiful medieval piece (Venetian, perhaps) from around the 13th century, which I haven't attributed yet.