Help needed on this major broken die Papal Medal* Lg pic warning*

JRocco

I posted this on the US coin forum to see if any error guys could help with this one.
This is a Pope Paul IIII papal medal, Spink 568 (I believe).
Can anyone explain this very odd broken die to me or has anyone ever seen this before?
This planchet is paper thin at the rims and bulges out in the center. Kinda like the bottom of a weebles wobble....

cacheman

Looks cast to me...

JRocco

<< <i>Looks cast to me... >>


My thoughts also, but I did not think these pieces were cast.
Here is an edge on pic. The large feature on the south side is the face of the crack.

STLNATS

Most of the AE medals we see today were restrikes from the late 18th & early 19th century from original dies purchased/collected from the mintmasters' families. They were used to produce medals for collectors (even in "sets" as I understand). This was to be a profit making enterprise and cutting new dies was expensive so they were used until they broke and then, as on your medal, occassionally beyond. I guess quality control for these collecter pieces wasn't "job one."

At any rate, minor and not so minor cracks are pretty common. Your piece is probably near the end of the life of the die. Very uncommon in my experience and I think I have only one or two pieces that were struck with dies as damaged as yours. I'm not sure there's a premium for such things, but are pretty nifty.

STLNATS

Your medal was struck, not cast.

Here's a couple of examples that I have. The first is the reverse of an AE 40 of Urban VIII



Its not quite as clear as your piece, but there is major die damage at 3 o'clock and the beading around the edge no longer joins up. There several more minor cracks, most notably in the word RESTITUTA, and the surface of the medal is very uneven with a large bulge in the SE quadrant.



This is an interesting AE 40 of Urban VII featuring a menora and an inscription referring to Matt. V.16. In this case, the die completely failed on the obverse resulting in the medal's surface having 2 distinct plains or elevations (not quite sure of the correct word) . You can see several other cracks beginning to form just below the major crack. The reverse has not yet broken thru, but is large enough to seem to be a design element.

I've seen other examples that I passed on over the years. I prefer a medal with minimal/no cracks; just personal preference. A lot of the restrikes of this period have at least some minor cracks, usually along the lettering. As I mentioned your piece is one of the most extreme examples I've seen.

spoon

That's definitely one of the most extreme examples of a die crack that I've ever seen!!