If only one of those boxes on the side of the coin press machine had, when filled to the rim, been taken and locked away in a sealed storage cabinet on the day the coins in the box were struck. And forgotten.
Then fast forward to today and have the box rediscovered (by me) under circumstances where the entire contents of the box could be viewed, inspected and evaluated one at a time in order to find the best examples (with the person examining same getting to pick out and keep any ten coins he or she wants as compensation for his or her services).
Even better would be if the year of production was not 1948 and instead was 1906, 1914 or 1927 and the coins being produced were not silver half dollars but gold (or in May 1964 when the 1964 Peace Dollars were struck).
Cool photo. I think many collectors have a poor understanding of the machine-shop, dirty, grimy, factory-like conditions that our beauties were created in. For business strikes, they paid little attention to keeping them pristine. I guess that's why nice business strike coins appeal to me. They're the rarest of the rare, jewels emerging from a hard-knock life that survived against all odds. Even the nicest ones show character, flaws, imperfections, and variable quality of detail and surfaces. Proofs, OTOH, were fussed over and handled with kid gloves from the moment of birth.
Edited to add:
Lifting scoopfuls of planchets to shoulder level all day long must have been fun. It's a perfect recipe for rotator cuff problems.
dcarr
Posts: 7,999 ✭✭✭✭✭
Comments
bob
U.S. Type Set
Then fast forward to today and have the box rediscovered (by me
Even better would be if the year of production was not 1948 and instead was 1906, 1914 or 1927 and the coins being produced were not silver half dollars but gold (or in May 1964 when the 1964 Peace Dollars were struck).
This is cool, and no wonder it is so hard to find MS66 and up Franklins. They were "shoveled" in!
Edited to add:
Lifting scoopfuls of planchets to shoulder level all day long must have been fun. It's a perfect recipe for rotator cuff problems.
They are also a relatively inexpensive set to put together.
jeff
edited to add: Looks like the Moe Howard era!
We'll use our hands and hearts and if we must we'll use our heads.
<< <i>Look at the belt system on that press. Talk about a finger eater. Man. >>
Not to mention the necktie. Don't think I'd want to lean over and retrieve any dropped planchets while wearing that!