Bust material and Planchet clips?

marmac

I need some help here. Are planchet clips a common occurence with the Bust series? Does anyone have any picture examples of some? I was surfing around and found a piece that has minimum circulation time and what appears to be a planchet clip (or just plain abuse and damage,not really sure).I am really starting to like the Bust series but am pretty ignorant to it so if any one can recommend a good book or site on Bust material I would appreciate it.

Thanks
Scott

JrGMan2004

For some general information, you can check out www.ByronReed.com and he has a Bust forum, so you can ask questions there... but beware, it's a slow forum, so it takes a while to get answers, but you can always e-mail Byron yourself

marmac

thanks...

dorkkarl

if you mean silver bust, such as halves & dimes, the answer is no, & for very good reason. a clipped planchet would almost certainly be below weight, & remelted. accurate weight was essential on such early coins, if a coin had only a very slight clip, just enough to keep it w/in tolerance, chances are the strike would just about obliterate evidence of the clip. you will see such coins, but like i said, the evidence of the clip will be neglible.

a "clip planchet" on such an early coin is more likely to be post-mint damage.

K S

birddog1

Scott,
Just came across your post. I agree with KS that they would normally be removed because of being under tolerance. A few that were within tolerance and representing a 1 or 2 percent clip might make it but would be difficult to distinguish after release. I've looked for years and years and only found one that is about a 2 percent clip. It is an 1825 JR5 (R5) dime in an NGC58 holder. You can just see the clip when you hold the holder up to the light but I can't get a decent image. Then, to blow all the ideas to hell, last year I found an 1820JR12 (R6+) dime with what I estimate is a 5-7 percent clip. The clip is exactly the same curvature as an 1820 dime (dime size and hence curvature varies from year to year). The dentiles around the clip show a failure to fill and are weak (as would be expected with a lack of metal inthis area) and the clip itself looks identical to other incomplete planchet/curved clips that I have in my collection. I would be curious to know what others think of this coin (assuming that the uplaod works correctly). Perhaps a few did escape the early minters?

Louis

birddog1

Image of the clip (I hope)

Louis

dorkkarl

hey louis, sorry your post got buried. this is an extremely intersting subject!

the clip on that 1820 sure looks like the real deal - congratulations! best clip i've seen. any idea what the coin weighs???

K S

Steve27

seanq

Well huh... the clip looks really good, especially the way the denticles on the obverse weaken at the edge. As you said, this is expected because there is no rim to force the metal upwards during the strike. The only thing turning me off is the shape of the clip - it doesn't look quite round in the pics, but if again as you say it matches the curvature then it's a home run. Did you say R6+ without the clip?!

On the same subject, here's a clipped Bust quarter I picked up on eBay a couple of months ago, unfortunately the holder blocks the rim a bit.



Birddog - turn on your PM function. If you have other clipped bust material in your colection, then we should definitely talk.


Sean Reynolds

NoGvmnt

The clip doesn't look to be authentic to me, first, because of the curvature and second, it does not appear that there is any weakness in the strike directly opposite from the clip (there is a name for this effect but it escapes me at this time).

Jim

seanq

nogvmt - you're looking for 'Blakeskey efefct', and it is often not present on clips from the early 1800s. On low-grade coins like my quarter or borddog1's dime it can be very hard to discern even if present.

The two key things I look for (and I look a lot ) are the surfaces of the faces right at the edge of the clip, especially at the rim, and the rim itself inside the clip. Even on a well-worn coin, you can usually find some indication of metal flow if the clip was present before the strike. On a harder metal like nickel, where the metal doesn't like to flow, even this is not 100% reliable. On the 1820 dime pictured, it looks like the denticles on the reverse flow toward the clip, which is a very good indication of a genuine error.


Sean Reynolds

NoGvmnt

Thank you Sean. I still have some reservation concerning the curvature of the clip itself.

Jim

dorkkarl

that dime was struck open-collar, much like large cents were. therefore, i'd anticipate distortion of the curvature of the clip, again, like what occurs on large cents.

keep the interesting posts coming!!!

K S

uncleb

Based on your question, I did a quick survey of the dimes in the Russ Logan Sale. Russ actively
pursued all types and degrees of die states and errors. I noticed that there were 14 strike errors
included among the 150, or so, dime lots. A similar review could be made of his collections of the
other denominations, if you would care to.

Granted, many clips receive a lot of wear and may not have been deemed worthy of a listing, but
I still would have expected more clips relative to the other errors:

Heavy Strike Doubling - 1
Off Center Strike - 1
Miss Aligned Dies (5%) - 1
Brockage - 2
Flip Over Double Strike - 1
Double Sruck on Obverse only - 1
Regular Double Strike (usually after an off-center strike) - 4
Double Struck, Partial Brockage, and Partial Collar - 1 (Amazing)
Clipped Planchets - 1, Maybe 2.

The cataloger at B&M did not agree that one of them was really a clip, and it was left up to the
bidders to decide for themselves. Certainly if Bowers and Logan can disagree on such a thing,
then so can we! Below is the coin that is a definite clip. The questionable coin was not pictured.



I also have a theory (okay, an unproved conjecture) that significant clips will be almost impossible
on any denomination processed with a Castaing machine. I suspect that whenever the clip rotated
toward either of the paralled dies it would lose contact with the machine and be a great frustration
to the operator, only to be tossed into the scrap bucket.

Yet another observation of mine is that open collar clips are much less likely to show the Blakeskey
Effect than close collar strikes. This is based soley on seeing some early coins with convincing
clips, but no effect on the opposite edge. Likewise the open collar clips seem to have less strike
weakness adjacent to the clip.

Myqqy

Marmac- can you find a picture or link to the bust coin that you had questions about??

seanq

Wow, that 1832 is a great coin! Is the Russ Logan catalog online or are you looking through a hard copy? I'd like to do some of the research you alluded to for the other denominations.

Your theory about the Castaing Machine culling out bigger clips is a good one, but so many other factors were involved in early American coinage that I doubt it would hold 100% of the time. We're talking about a Mint that would cut down misstruck cent planchets to manufacture half cents, I have the feeling if the pile of miscut planchets were the difference between making a quota or not, they were going to get struck. The Michael Arconti sale of error large cents from last summer included many early clips including a 1794 with at least a 20% straight clip - and a Blakesley effect (I was an underbidder). I recall another lot where the cataloger mentioned the weakness of the edge lettering opposite the clip as a diagnostic.

Which leads me nicely to your other point. The Blakesley effect is created before the strike, when the planchet is passed through an upsetting mill (or, I guess, the Castaing machine if the edge is lettered). I don't know if coins in the open-collar era went through the upsetting process, though the bit of Blakesley visible on the 1832 dime makes me think they did. I agree and it makes sense that the effect could be obliterated by the mechanics of an open-collar strike. Again referring to the 1832 dime, that coin is... *squints*... AU at least, I'd think in any grade below VF that bit of Blakesley would be very difficult to distinguish.

I've found in my eight-plus years of collecting clips that with the early issues, no-brainer coins like that 1832 are few and very far between. Most of the time you're making a judgement call, and as you said, if Logan and Bowers couldn't agree I'm certainly not going to come in and trump then both with my opinions.


Sean Reynolds
(happy to finally have an interesting thread in his area of expertise)

Louis

BirdDog1 is using my icon and my name.


Welcome BirdDog1, where are you from ?

Conder101

<< <i>I don't know if coins in the open-collar era went through the upsetting process, though the bit of Blakesley visible on the 1832 dime makes me think they did. >>


The 1832 dime is not an open collar coin. (Close collars were used as early as 1828.) The open collar coins did go through the upsetting process though, or at least all of the silver coins did because they used the Castaining machine to apply either the reeded edge or the lettered edge as the case demanded.

dorkkarl

hey uncleb, fantastic post. why don't you post more often???

K S

uncleb

In the past, I've spent most of my time over at RCC and didn't even bother checking these boards.
When JrGMan and several others from here started posting to my site, I figured I'd come back and
check it out.

In answer to Sean's question, I looked at my printed copy. However, on online version is available
here: Russ Logan et al sale. If you just want to see only Russ' coins his son has set up this page: here.
The clipped dime was lot 2116, which was graded EF40 in the catalog.

Barndog

This is numismatic discussion at its finest. Some of the referenced pages may be out of date, but the information in here is fantastic.

seanq

I wish I had more clipped bust coins to add to it now, but 2+ years later I've not been able to find any.


Sean Reynolds

Conder101

I'm glad this thread has come back up because it allows me to correct an error in my earlier post that has been shown to not be true based on later research.

I said:


<< <i>The 1832 dime is not an open collar coin. (Close collars were used as early as 1828.) The open collar coins did go through the upsetting process though, or at least all of the silver coins did because they used the Castaining machine to apply either the reeded edge or the lettered edge as the case demanded >>


It actually turns out that the close collar was used much earlier, or at least something closer than an open collar. The Castaining Machine was NOT used to impart the reeded edge on the early silver and gold coins. The reeded edge was formed on the coins BY THE COLLAR DIE as early as 1795.

This is based on research done by Brad Karloff from examnations of early off-center coinage. It had been notice that on certaincoin varieties irregularities in the edge reeding always appeared in the same spot relative to the devices on the obv and rev. Also, although blundered edge lettering on the halves and dollars from overlapping of the impressions of the edge dies, there are no cases of blundered reeded edges from overlap of reeded edge dies. So Brad examined off-center early federal silver and gold coinage (all the way back to the flowing hair coins) and found that off-center lettered edge coins had lettered edges, but off-center reeded edge half dimes, dimes, and quarters had PLAIN edges. Proof that the reeds must have been created on the coins by the collars during striking.

This might mean that the early reeded edge coins may not have gone through the Castaining machine to upset the edges. (I don't know if the off-center early coins that Brad looked showed upset edges or not.)