Would it bother you to know . . .
Singapore
Posts: 578
. . . that this coin, which was sold last year -
- appeared in an auction in the 1980s and that big black spot at the Hogs feet wasn't there?
It would bother me. You figure it it survived without the spot from 1616 to 1980, probably having been dropped, kicked, lost, stolen, spent, etc. without a spot, it shouldn't pick one up between 1980 and now in some guys coin collection.
Should it?
- appeared in an auction in the 1980s and that big black spot at the Hogs feet wasn't there?
It would bother me. You figure it it survived without the spot from 1616 to 1980, probably having been dropped, kicked, lost, stolen, spent, etc. without a spot, it shouldn't pick one up between 1980 and now in some guys coin collection.
Should it?
Singapore
0
Comments
Glenn
You should write an article for the next C4 newsletter explaining the obvious: All great colonials should be slabbed to protect them! (How do those guys say "Bann'd?")
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Photographic Memory? Well, yeah, I guess so. But also an unquenchable appetite for the obscure. A large numismatic library. And an understanding wife.
Something to be said for encasing your coins in bulletproof plastic, protected from greasy potato chip fingers and accidental drops in which coins role on edge at high speed under your refridgerator.
Uncorrupted for 367 years. Think of it.
By the way, this was Bowers 4/1983:2 ($5500), a Sommer Islands Bermuda shilling. The jagged outline of the coin is unmistakable, it matches the specimen above.
It appears that there was a fat diagonal stripe across the hog's body as depicted in the 1983 catalog. Judging from the scan above, it seems that this is what the coin doctor was trying to remove, and did so with some success, but caused some other problems in the process.
Whats it going to look like in another few years?
Incidentally, this coin is currently a PCGS XF40 and brought something like $33K in a recent Goldberg sale.
your assuming that the coin wasn't doctored prior to the bowers sale - an exceptionally risky assumption for a coin of that ilk. for all you know, the coin now looks more original than it ever did prior to 1980.
what makes you so sure that slabing a colonial might not entrap contaminants that could otherwise escape the coin over time? coins were intended to be used, to be exposed, not ensnared in the anti-septic world of plastic. i like copper coins that have taken on a natural, aged look, & if this coin were blast-white & lustrous, i wouldn't like it at all
i know, i know, call me crazy
K S
The piece could well have been conserved in some way prior to the 1983 sale (perhaps dozens of times through the years).
My 'concern' was that I see definitive proof that sometime between 1983 and 2002 the coin has developed a large black spot, and for my $33K, I'd prefer to not to find a relatively recent negative addition to my coin. I would suggest also that 20 years is not a long time in the history of this coin and that what we see here is a signficant bad development.
Maybe the spot occured naturally as you say and that the coin is 'retoning' to its original appearance. Personally I think that thats extremely unlikley. I also would suggest that a large black spot is not to be confused with natural toning, and I note that the rest of the coin looks about like it did in 1983.
I suspect that this coin was conserved relatively recently in an effort to try to pretty it up prior to being submitted for slabbing and I fear that that recent work has caused this 'new' spot.
Can't prove it though. Not sure it matters. I wouldn't buy it.
<< <i>Maybe the spot occured naturally as you say >>
hey singapore, not suggesting the new spot is or ever was "natural", quite the opposite. i suspect it is very "unnatural" due to previous problematic "curation". frankly, i just don't understand the innate desire to "fix" problems on coins that are 400 years old - leave the problems be!!! but that's another story.
just trying to point out that we do not know what the coin looked like 100, 200, or 300 years ago, only 20 years ago.
put it a different way - suppose there was a brown spot in that area of the coin, & in 1980, it was aggravated by a ill-conceived "curation" attempt. coin went to bowers. the metal, having been aggravated, is now more susceptible to "toning" or "spotting". my contention in such a case would be: the spot is actually good for the coin, as it ought to oxidize to a certain extent, then stabilize.
i guess the bottom line for me is, i would fully expect a 400 y-o coin, most especially hogge money, to have spots, scabs, corrosion, etc etc. if the issue is purely when it happened, well i can't answer for that. the bigger issue for me would be why someone (likely) attempted a stupid curation in the 1st place. there's no other reasonable explanation of why a 400 y-o coin that ought to be stable by now would suddenly grow spots.
K S