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In over my head with a cache of early copper?
Mercfan
Posts: 701 ✭✭
So I was at the counter of a buyer and reseller of collectibles a week or so ago, and I took a VERY quick look through an old cloth bag of coins to see what was in it. I recognized relatively few of the scores of coins it contained, and picked out a couple of complete unkowns that I thought looked interesting. When I got home and did some research with my Red Book and Google, I found that one is a Vermonts copper, and one is a Canadian hard times token.
I went back a day or so later and bought the entire bag. It contained some silver pieces ranging from the most worn and abused Columbian Expo half dollar I've ever seen, to an 1889 British florin with a small hole drilled in it, to a beautiful, lustrous, uncirculated and golden-rim-toned 1916 silver 1-Franc (and a similar 1917 1/2-Franc). There were five or six Canadian silver 5-cent pieces, and some other random silver coins as well.
There were also some odd pieces like four MS-62ish 1963-D Lincolns, two or three awful steel cents, some modern (1917--but not silver) French coins strung through their holes on a string, and some other odds and ends.
But mostly there were dozens of old coppers, half-cent sized and larger, most with legible dates from the 19th century. Some are bent; some are holed; some are worn so thoroughly on both sides that there's no way to tell what they once were. But lots of them have visible lettering and significant portions of their devices still visible, so I've been working on identifying as many as I can. It's going slowly, but I've determined (with a pretty high degree of confidence) that I have:
the Vermonts piece
a New Jersey copper
a Virginia half penny
three Ireland harp (Hibernia) half pennies
six to ten different Canadian hard times tokens
a couple of U.S. hard times tokens
a couple of U.S. Civil War tokens
a Machin's Mills (Georgivs II) copper (which may be a cast counterfeit)
an 1818 U.S. large cent
at least one Canadian Blacksmith copper
and several dozen others that I haven't yet identified.
The lady who sold me the bag said that she had purchased it from someone who had found it in an old barn, presumably in central or northern New York. There seems to be a concentration of stuff from the late 18th and early 19th centuries and quite a bit of Canadian stuff. There's also a bunch of more recent stuff (as described above) including other British large cents, Canadian large cents, some Bank of Upper Canada and Bank of Montreal half-pennies and pennies, and a bunch of reasonably old (1840-1898) French, Spanish, and other European coppers.
I'm sure some of this stuff is old but fairly common. But to help me identify the pieces that might not be so common, I'm looking for some resources.
Can anyone point me to web sites that have helpful images (or detailed descriptions) of U.S. and Canadian colonial and post-colonial coppers? I've gotten quite a bit of help from the University of Notre Dame coins web pages--where I learned everything I now know about Canadian Blacksmith coppers.
Is anyone familiar with an early 19th century token that depicts an elephant with a castle tower on its back (like the rooks in some chess sets)? Anyone familar with a similar large 19th-century coin or token that depicts a man riding a horse? How about 19th century half-penny sized coppers that depict three-masted sailing ships (either facing left or facing right)?
I realize that it would help for me to post images, and I don't have any yet. But one of these days the sun will shine and I'll try to capture some images of some of these I haven't been able to find.
I went back a day or so later and bought the entire bag. It contained some silver pieces ranging from the most worn and abused Columbian Expo half dollar I've ever seen, to an 1889 British florin with a small hole drilled in it, to a beautiful, lustrous, uncirculated and golden-rim-toned 1916 silver 1-Franc (and a similar 1917 1/2-Franc). There were five or six Canadian silver 5-cent pieces, and some other random silver coins as well.
There were also some odd pieces like four MS-62ish 1963-D Lincolns, two or three awful steel cents, some modern (1917--but not silver) French coins strung through their holes on a string, and some other odds and ends.
But mostly there were dozens of old coppers, half-cent sized and larger, most with legible dates from the 19th century. Some are bent; some are holed; some are worn so thoroughly on both sides that there's no way to tell what they once were. But lots of them have visible lettering and significant portions of their devices still visible, so I've been working on identifying as many as I can. It's going slowly, but I've determined (with a pretty high degree of confidence) that I have:
the Vermonts piece
a New Jersey copper
a Virginia half penny
three Ireland harp (Hibernia) half pennies
six to ten different Canadian hard times tokens
a couple of U.S. hard times tokens
a couple of U.S. Civil War tokens
a Machin's Mills (Georgivs II) copper (which may be a cast counterfeit)
an 1818 U.S. large cent
at least one Canadian Blacksmith copper
and several dozen others that I haven't yet identified.
The lady who sold me the bag said that she had purchased it from someone who had found it in an old barn, presumably in central or northern New York. There seems to be a concentration of stuff from the late 18th and early 19th centuries and quite a bit of Canadian stuff. There's also a bunch of more recent stuff (as described above) including other British large cents, Canadian large cents, some Bank of Upper Canada and Bank of Montreal half-pennies and pennies, and a bunch of reasonably old (1840-1898) French, Spanish, and other European coppers.
I'm sure some of this stuff is old but fairly common. But to help me identify the pieces that might not be so common, I'm looking for some resources.
Can anyone point me to web sites that have helpful images (or detailed descriptions) of U.S. and Canadian colonial and post-colonial coppers? I've gotten quite a bit of help from the University of Notre Dame coins web pages--where I learned everything I now know about Canadian Blacksmith coppers.
Is anyone familiar with an early 19th century token that depicts an elephant with a castle tower on its back (like the rooks in some chess sets)? Anyone familar with a similar large 19th-century coin or token that depicts a man riding a horse? How about 19th century half-penny sized coppers that depict three-masted sailing ships (either facing left or facing right)?
I realize that it would help for me to post images, and I don't have any yet. But one of these days the sun will shine and I'll try to capture some images of some of these I haven't been able to find.
"Coin collecting problem"? What "coin collecting problem"?
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this is almost certainly a Conder Token.....does the obverse say PRO BONO PUBLICO and have Lady Godiva on horseback?
www.brunkauctions.com
www.brunkauctions.com
<< <i>>>elephant with a castle tower on its back >>
this is almost certainly a Conder Token.....does the obverse say PRO BONO PUBLICO and have Lady Godiva on horseback? >>
Yup!
It's got a lot of wear, but the image of the lady on horseback is quite clear, as are "PRO", the "O" of "BONO" and (now that you've told me what it is) "PUBLICO." It has a hole punched into it near the rim at 8:00 on the horse side. I can't make out the letters on the elephant side, and if there's a date on this piece, it's not visible to me.
Thanks so much for helping, Greg! I'll now go learn a little about Conder Tokens!
http://www.pcgscoinfacts.com/
thats wonderful!
anyone have an old barn i can take stuff from too?