Has anyone heard of Bashlow trial pieces?

superpsychmd

I think I bought one today. It is a 2 inch square piece of copper metal, with a confederate cent imbedded in it so that only one side is exposed, and this is with a mirror image. It is virtually in perfect condition. My thought it was a test piece to see how the one side of the coin would come out. Is this unusual or what?

DorkGirl

Can you show us a picture?

superpsychmd

I am in Europe now, at a hotel computer, so no, sorry. Picked it up at a coin and stamp flea market

jonathanb

As I recall, there were several hundred of those made. Here's one at Heritage. Nice pickup!

superpsychmd

I just answered my own question by googling "Bashlow die trial pieces.

Mine is actually not the one you linked, jonathanb (thanks for trying, though)

This was described by someone on a thread where they said it was a hub die trial that was unifaced and a mirror image. The person said a pair of these, obv and reverse, were featured in a Stacks auction in the last couple of years, and that they were struck in a variety of metals. Yep, a pretty cool find indeed!

CaptHenway

If it is reversed, it is a hub "die trial," though they were really made to sell commercially and not to test the hub.

crypto79

The Bashlow cents are the biggest hoax in American coinage and are less of a real coin than D. Carr 64d peace dollar. At least the 64d is a copy of a coin that was made and uses a real coin as a base.

I personalty think that the "confederate" cents are the perfect example of the cloud of time and the whims of dreamers and profiteers changing history to suit the myth and not support the facts. IMO this is the real danger of fringe acceptable fakes like Carr's pieces. On the Cents people overlook that there is nothing linking the coins to
1- The actual time period of the civil war
2- the Confederacy
3- A procurement order by any one official at all form either the army or the Gov

And gloss over the known facts
1- They were produced, designed by a private (bankrupt & drunk) medalist and token maker in the north, not the south. (no reason to sell a story there)
2- They were "discovered" in the mid 1870s during a profitable wave of civil war nostalgia sweeping the country by a coin dealer (Haseltine) who owned all of them and did a well manged promotion on them and the 74 restrikes.
3- The rest were made in the 1960's by transfer dies of the alleged original dies but even that is contested and simply the story of another "lucky" coin dealer who scored an exclusive.

At best they're late period mementos or fantasy pieces that have been confused over time.