Ever seen a gear made from a Draped Bust Cent?

fivecents

I was at a coin show a few years ago and this dealer had a Draped Bust coin in a gorgeous glossy AU50. This coin had been crafted into a perfect miniture gear, the gear was the same size as the Large cent and the obv and rev still had it's details(and beauty), only the edge had been changed to make the gear.The craftmanship was so fantastic it looked like a watch maker had made it. The splines were perfectly angled to fit whatever cog it would fit.The dealer told me that when a gear was broken, metal was VERY hard to aquire back then. The cents were readily avaliable and were used to fabricate a gears as a replacement for the broken gear.
Am I full of crap or has anyone else seen these or better yet owns one. Thanks for your comments or flames.

BigE

Sounds cool, adds new meaning to the word "tooled". It would be neat in an ANACS holder---------------------BigE

indianabyron

Ive seen numerous large cents made into gears. It was common pratice to do this because the cost of getting a new gear as apposed to making the gear was worth it. New gear back then 1 or 2 dollars the use of a large 1 cent piece. Worth while investment for them.


Byron

MrHalfDime

I, too, have seen large cents made into gears and other machine parts. In fact, I have an example of an 1847 Braided Hair large cent that was fashioned into a gear. A few years ago, at a Nashua, NH show, a dealer showed me an interesting large cent that was modified into what he described as a pastry or pasta cutter, looking much like a gear, with a hole in the middle, and a groove running fully around the edge. It looked like what you might describe as a pulley, but with gear teeth, and the groove on the edge.

I live in Maine, which has been a shipbuilding area for 300+ years. Apparently the old shipbuilders, when fastening the planks to the wooden ship hulls, would use washers under the heads of the nails to prevent the nail heads from pulling clear through the planks when the wood swelled. As washers were scarce in the nineteenth century, they used what they had, and actually nailed many large cents to the hulls of the old ships. It was not unusual to find kegs of well circulated large cents at some of the shipbuilders shops, and there are tales of finding such kegs in modern times.

thefinn

I'm sure some were fashioned into spurs too. Now that would be something.

BryceM

Looks like a pie crimper to me.