Martha Washington patterns
Zoins
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Are any of these 5 cent patterns in private hands? It could be interesting to build a Martha Washington collection.
The following is from the Charlotte Voice on Jan 25, 2014:
The following is from the Charlotte Voice on Jan 25, 2014:
Experimental test strikes of the 5-cent denomination using Martha Washington/Mount Vernon nonsense dies were produced on planchets of the same copper-plated zinc composition used for the current Lincoln cents.
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I'll start by digging through my wife's change jar like THIS guy did.
https://imdb.com/name/nm1835107/
ANA in Chicago in August, but the owner
turned down my offer.
He thought it was rare, and worth over a
thousand dollars......
I thought it was cool, but knew that there
could easily be hundreds more of them
out there at some point.
My offer would have set a record price
for any Waffled coin, by far!
for PCGS. A 49+-Year PNG Member...A full numismatist since 1972, retired in 2022
Is USPatterns.com being kept up to date? The last pattern on the site is the 2000W gold Sac - 1880 to date page.
I had a Waffled example in my hand at the
ANA in Chicago in August, but the owner
turned down my offer.
He thought it was rare, and worth over a
thousand dollars......
I thought it was cool, but knew that there
could easily be hundreds more of them
out there at some point.
My offer would have set a record price
for any Waffled coin, by far!
I bet some Aunt Jemima Syrup would have sweetened the deal
Probably thought it was worth 4 figures as there's another out there in a ANACS slab being offered for that amount.
I had a Waffled example in my hand at the
ANA in Chicago in August, but the owner
turned down my offer.
He thought it was rare, and worth over a
thousand dollars......
I thought it was cool, but knew that there
could easily be hundreds more of them
out there at some point.
My offer would have set a record price
for any Waffled coin, by far!
It may be worth over a $1000 if he can sell it to a collector before any more are found.
Another two were unsold on Heritage in 2014 CSNS.
Waffles have a grid pattern. To me this is "corrugated."
Silly question, but why are these called "waffled?" Who coined the term, so to speak?
Waffles have a grid pattern. To me this is "corrugated."
Or Accordioned
out there - well, beyond the obvious - but strange the feds are not chasing them - or do
they only chase gold and silver? Sounds like discrimination to me...
Not sure of the protocol involved, but the Mint would ship a set of dies to the outside manufacturer, and they would strike
a number of pieces. I don't think that there was a requirement about the resulting tokens, so in some cases there could be
hundreds or thousands extent.
Now that Dan Carr is around, there might not be the need for these anymore, as Dan can whip up a set of dies pretty quickly.
Silly question, but why are these called "waffled?" Who coined the term, so to speak?
Waffles have a grid pattern. To me this is "corrugated."
The term waffled comes from the other side such as this image. It's cool that you can see the copper breaking out of the bend.
Silly question, but why are these called "waffled?" Who coined the term, so to speak?
Waffles have a grid pattern. To me this is "corrugated."
The term waffled comes from the other side such as this image. It's cool that you can see the copper breaking out of the bend.
Looks more like it went through a paper shredder then waffle iron
Silly question, but why are these called "waffled?" Who coined the term, so to speak?
Waffles have a grid pattern. To me this is "corrugated."
The term waffled comes from the other side such as this image. It's cool that you can see the copper breaking out of the bend.
Looks more like it went through a paper shredder then waffle iron
My shredder works a bit better than just making impressions
I can imagine some Aunt Jemima on that
Why would anyboby pay anything for a smashed-up coin? Probably a stupid question but I'm a newbie and so I obviously don't know what's really valuable.
The US Mint is probably wondering the same question. Of course, the answer is that it's smashed-up by the right people
Waffle cancelled coins are slabbed by all 4 major TPGs as well.
production on the five-ounce, three-inch-diameter America the
Beautiful silver coins, it used dies with a Martha Washington
portrait and nonsense legends. All of the test coins were reportedly
recycled. I suggested to the Mint that at least two of them
should be sent to the Smithsonian for the National Numismatic
Collection.
When the Mint was testing a Grabener press before full-scale
production on the five-ounce, three-inch-diameter America the
Beautiful silver coins, it used dies with a Martha Washington
portrait and nonsense legends. All of the test coins were reportedly
recycled. I suggested to the Mint that at least two of them
should be sent to the Smithsonian for the National Numismatic
Collection.
That's very cool and good to know.
When you say recycled, were they waffled?
- Text and photos on CoinUpdate.com
- US Mint Alternative Metals Study Phase II Technical Report
Silly question, but why are these called "waffled?" Who coined the term, so to speak?
Waffles have a grid pattern. To me this is "corrugated."
The term waffled comes from the other side such as this image. It's cool that you can see the copper breaking out of the bend.
Looks more like it went through a paper shredder then waffle iron
My shredder works a bit better than just making impressions
I can imagine some Aunt Jemima on that
Or some A-1 cause it looks more Grilled than waffled
Steve
"My Secretary of the Treasury, Joe Fowler, is a little stingy about making samples, but I have some here. Joe made sure that I wouldn't put them in my pocket by sending them over here in plastic."
A few have been found since; this dime in my collection:
Here is one of the Lucite Blocks LBJ references; now in the Smithsonian:
A Martha Washington half dollar die is being offered for $50k now.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Martha-Washington-Obverse-Die-for-Half-Dollar-Test-Pieces-Judd-2131-UNIQUE/273421803681
Have you run across any others?
I can actually see this worth over a thousand dollars to someone if it was the only one known. The owner would just need to wait till he ran across that person. The waffled Martha Washington quarter above is being sold for $2,000 and there are many non-waffled specimens. If there is only one waffled or non-waffled specimen of a 5 cent piece, someone may value it over $1,000.
The 5C coin I saw at the Chicago ANA back in 2015,
and didn't buy, showed up at the ANA last week.
It was purchased by Jon Sullivan - so far, it's the
only one out there. In my post back in '15, I had
mentioned that I wasn't sure there couldn't be
hundreds of them (or more)......but no other
pieces, waffled or not, have shown up.
There is a Coin World article on it already, I believe.
for PCGS. A 49+-Year PNG Member...A full numismatist since 1972, retired in 2022
Good info. It's a tough call. It's one of those pieces where you could take a bath or not get another opportunity.
Here's the Coin World article and photos. It was discovered by a Pennsylvania man that does bag searches.
https://www.coinworld.com/news/us-coins/2018/08/waffle-canceled-martha-washington-test-piece-surfaces.all.html
I grabbed one as I thought they could be very rare. I am very glad that a flood of others did not show up
This excerpt from experimental "nonsense coin" destruction lists might be of interest. All these are of the Martha Washington design.
It’s updated regularly.
http://uspatterns.com/recentupdates.html
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Roger, does destruction mean "waffled canceled"
Those are extremely low numbers.
I see the news and article references, but I was referring to the concordance.
The 2000W entry is in the Concordance and that still seems to be the latest entry there.
http://uspatterns.com/pat18todat.html
A more specific question is whether the following Martha Washington cents and nickels should be included in the Concordance?
The 2000W dollar listed is only in public government hands and now there is a cancelled Martha Washington nickel in private hands.
http://news.coinupdate.com/us-mint-reports-findings-of-alternative-coin-materials-research-1765/
I’ll discuss with Saul.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
No. This pre-dates waffling by about 30 years. The coins were usually rolled out, then melted and cast into bars for re-use or sale to industry.
Thank you, now I see the date on the bottom of the document. Duh!
I thank you for bringing this forum so many valuable documents to the numismatic community!
You're welcome. Sometimes the documents tell us things we don't really want to accept, and sometimes they open new doors.
According to Saul:
"I have the following items noted but I haven’t given them Judd numbers yet as I do not if we have all of the alloys listed and/or enough information on how to identify them. That would be helpful prior to setting them up."
http://uspatterns.stores.yahoo.net/2012testpieces2.html
http://uspatterns.stores.yahoo.net/2012testpieces1.html
http://uspatterns.stores.yahoo.net/2012testpieces.html
And according to me, it's only a matter of time and research before the coins are listed in the concordance. So don't blame us, blame Roger! (I mean, seriously, who else is going to do the research?)
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Thanks for the confidence, Andy, but I avoid these things whenever possible. The absence of consistent, reliable data from the Mint Bureau makes it nearly impossible to approach "completeness" for any of these. The destruction lists for the 1960s are useful since they correlate with Inco and Gould (1970s) private pattern pieces. But other pieces are isolated and have limited context. I feel the Mint Historian's Office should be documenting all this experimentation, but evidently the Mint Bureau does not.
It is still on eBay, but now in a NGC box/slab/cube/whatever they call then
Here's another image I ran across on Google cache, which is no longer online:
Here's a good thread on these:
Martha Washington Test Pennies...Are they Valuable?
I purchased this example at the ANA, and later sold it. Great coin, and the only one I've seen. It appears in person like a copper, nickel sized coin, but of course has the Martha design on it. Really neat piece, and it went to a collector. With the same coin came a Martha pattern quarter. One of the neatest coins to walk up to my table!
Interesting update--another Martha Washington piece came out of the same group. I didn't notice it at first, but upon closer examination noticed one of the coins is a quarter size Martha Washington "nonsense". Loo> @Zoins said:
Very cool Jon! It's great to have more history on this coin!
It was a fun coin to handle. A nickel-sized, copper (in appearance) Martha experimental piece is unexpected.
Do you know the composition?
I found the following 2018 article on this pattern coin, but no composition was given:
Ref: https://www.coinworld.com/news/us-coins/2018/08/waffle-canceled-martha-washington-test-piece-surfaces.html
Do you think it's Judd-2221, which is referenced in an earlier 2014 article also by Pail Gilkes.
Ref: https://uspatterns.stores.yahoo.net/2012testpieces1.html
While the eBay link isn't active any more, the archive link from Mike @Byers is still up.
https://mikebyers.com/martha-washington-obverse-die.html
Here's the NGC insert photo:
This was also a Mint Error News cover piece!
Here's a great coin with a prominent die clash.
How common are coins with this, or other die clashes?
Is the clash tracked with a Judd variety number?
From: https://coins.ha.com/itm/patterns/-1759-1965-martha-washington-half-dollar-judd-2131-pollock-2083-r8-ms64-ngc/a/60160-92170.s
@Zoins
The story and history of the Martha Washington test pieces and dies, are certainly one of the most interesting in numismatics.
Here is the unique Judd # 2225 cancelled Martha Washington Test Piece. After 12 years it is still unique. None are known in private hands without the cancelation either! NGC encapsulated this in a regular holder.
@Zoins, 5c size struck on a copper plated zinc planchet, with a weight of 4.06 grams.
@Zoins
Thanks for posting the Half Dollar Size Martha Washington Obverse Test Die.
For those who aren’t aware, here is the only known Cent size Martha Washington Reverse Die:
https://mikebyers.com/martha-washington-reverse-die.html
What makes something the only known?
I once held a die of the design described in these articles in private hands.
https://coinbooks.org/esylum_v15n37a18.html
https://coinworld.com/news/precious-metals/new-martha-washington-dies-in-use-for-tests.html
I don't think it has a Judd number. I do think I saw a waffled coin with that design.