The Wolfson / DuPont 1854-S Half Eagle compared to the newly discovered piece.
EagleEye
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As soon as the discovery of another specimen of the rare 1854-S Half Eagle was announced, it was compared to the stolen Wolfson/DuPont example. It was declared "New" by NGC.
Here is the DuPont piece from the 1962 Stack's Wolfson sale compared to the newly discovered example:
If you click on the image you can blow it up.
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Lots of people are better at matching coins to images than I am. I can see a few marks that look consistent (12:00 obverse, for example). But if that mark is consistent, I also see marks that don't appear consistent (the schmutz under the "1" in the date on the new coin). My impression is that they are in fact different pieces--or at worst the auction images are too low resolution to make a conclusive determination.
--Severian the Lame
The wear doesn't seem to match. More wear by a fair amount on the new coin...
siliconvalleycoins.com
Or are you implying that is was worn intentionally after theft?
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Too bad D.A. isn't around to have a look.
siliconvalleycoins.com
Pretty difficult to make a conclusive determination
Latin American Collection
I dont think its the same coin but that's the one characteristic that cant be used as evidence. Wear is easy to "counterfeit"
You got spots the newly discovered coin has and the other one does not.
WS
Although the images from the 1960s are rather poor....Based on markers in addition to wear; I believe that they are different coins.
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There's something going on between the 2 dots between Five Dollars and America on the reverse of the Dupont coin. That's the only thing my feable eyes can determine would separate the 2 from the pictures if the new coin was artificially worn. That could just be an anomaly in the old picture also.
As I recall reading some of the stolen coins resurfaced so they didn't get smelted. Yet this doesn't look like the same piece. Then again 49 years is a long time for the appearance of the DuPont coin to have been aided in a total make-over. Hopefully NGC had more to go on than a B&W dot matrix printed plate? Did the Wolfson Stack's sale description mention any distinguishing marks?
i would have to think that NGC would be 99.9% sure this was not the stolen coin before putting it in its slab.
The new coin has a lightly processed look to it despite the choiceful applications of dirt on the obverse. My gut reaction when seeing the coin was that the overall surfaces did not match with a newly discovered coin and that it was recently processed with then the dirt applied.
Latin American Collection
There are several stars on the DuPont example that are weak that appear stronger on the more worn new example -- for instance, star #12. This suggests the new example and the DuPont example are not the same coin.
But really, those old Stack's images stink.
The coin docs. can't improve strike, luster or decrease the amount of surface chatter or "noise"; but they have 1001 methods at their disposal to change a coin's appearance.
Schmutz and wear can be added over time. One needs to compare marks in common on both coins. Pretty inconclusive from the catalog, but if Stack's still has negatives or original prints from the paste-up of the catalog, that would be a different story.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
One would think S-B has the original negatives of the Wolfson /DuPont coin somewhere. One would hope NGC got access to them.
This kind of controversy is what makes coin collecting an adrenaline-filled joyride down the highway of life.
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One would so think and hope.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
I was looking for the original images from the Wolfson sale for another project and spoke with the Stack brothers at the last Chicago ANA. They told me that the original bid books and all the basic image plates were thrown out long ago,
Latin American Collection
It would seem to me to be prudent in an extreme situation like this - 3 known, one missing, new one shows up - to assume that this is the missing coin and then attempt to disprove that.
My only observation on the images is that there seems to be extensive and uneven wear at 8 o'clock on the obverse rim into the denticles vs the rest of the obv and vs the rev.
Coin Rarities Online
Comparing the coin to those old pictures, at least on my computer screen (top notch and new), make it virtually impossible. Sure, there are some apparent differences, but are they artifacts of a copied image or real? Cheers, RickO
That sucks. You'd think that archival photos of something promoted as "exceedingly rare" would have been retained so that the coin wouldn't have to be studied from a small, low-resolution halftone print, especially if it were stolen before Stack's pitched the photos.
I guess one moral of this story is to have good photos of your collection, because you can't count on someone else having them for you.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
I would imagine the police report would include good images
I agree with CRO on this point. As for the photos, I can't tell anything from the original photo.
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Unless it was an artifact of imaging, look at the rims. The rims appear much thinner at 12 O'clock on the Dupont coin as compared to the new found specimen.
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IMHO, there is no way to tell anything for sure using the black & white image provided.
I watched the NGC "discovery of a lifetime" video regarding the new coin. Interesting that this ultra-rarity circulated down to XF45 - I would think it would have to be been a pocket piece to get to that point. Possibly the DuPont coin was pocket-pieced, given the "New England Collector" won't reveal where it came from??
I disagree. Gold coins CIRCULATED in California! Would not have taken very long for it to get down to EF-45.
In my experience, the images used in old catalogs were sometimes trimmed by hand, and what you are saying could be accurate, or it could be the result of careless cropping.
Coin Rarities Online
FWIW, it appears to me to be careless cropping -- very typical of old Stack's photos.
To be sure it is a different coin you should see something on the new coin that could not have been on the DuPont coin.
For instance the top berry looks to be weak from a filled die on the new coin. Is it weak on the DuPont coin? I see a similar dark area to the right of the 5 on both. I agree that better pictures are needed. I don't see a smoking gun either way, yet.
Steal the coin, wear it down, wait many years, then come out of the woodwork with no backstory on where you acquired it. Now you have a "discovery" piece.
Or one that nobody will want to go near out of fear that it could be stolen.
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When I lean back away from the screen and squint, I see one thing:
Good Point! Makes one wonder how many more might be out there.
Could those be die markers?
Let's see the reverses blown up like that.
As my dad and I were talking about this "discovery" is that given the theft, it seems that a lack of a backstory combined with an Occam's razor approach like CRO mentioned would be required. Advancements in laser tech and doctoring plus time to wear down the coin in a manner that is optimal to the thief and their descendants is just too much to ignore.
siliconvalleycoins.com
I am reminded of a story I once heard about a high-end coin club meeting where one of the members presented, as his "show-and-tell" contribution, an ancient coin that he described as "unique." After the coin was passed around and left out with the other items on display, it was suddenly noticed to be missing!
The owner, highly upset, requested that everybody in the room be searched. Most agreed, but one member refused. This caused the owner of the coin to cast veiled aspersions upon the other member's honesty. The other member stood by his rights.
Suddenly the coin was rediscovered in some plausible location that I cannot recall. The owner was satisfied that it was his coin, unharmed, and he offered a half-hearted apology to the other member, ending with the question "But if you knew that you did not have the piece, why did you object to being searched?"
In response the other member silently pulled out of his pocket a SECOND specimen of the allegedly "unique" coin.
Nobody has offered any CREDIBLE proof, or even suggestion, that the new coin is the DuPont coin. I would advise everyone here to remember this before casting aspersions upon it.
TD
P.S.: Rick Montgomery says the two coins are not the same. He is damned good at what he does. I trained him to be an Authenticator.
That was the one thing I saw as well. The problem is that it's probably not conclusive enough to prove anything in court, which is where any dispute over the coin's provenance would have to be resolved.
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That's a nice looking example!
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My thought is that it was part of the die and would be present on all 4 coins. Although the "marker" does not appear present on the coin TDN posted.
That's like what they did with the stolen block of four 24c Airmail stamps. Except perforations were added to the straight edges if I remember and the block was separated to yield four single stamps. So far three have been recovered and one is still missing.
@CaptHenway said: "Rick Montgomery says the two coins are not the same. He is damned good at what he does.
I trained him to be an Authenticator.
I agree! So you are the one.
No one has publicly offered credible proof that it is not the DuPont specimen. The fact that the coin could be a new specimen does not mean that it is the most likely scenario.
Latin American Collection
The entire year's mintage of $5's was delivered from the coiner on a single day in April.
I am convinced that this small mintage of coins represented the SF boys simply testing out the dies.
This applies to the low mintage 1854-S quarter eagles too.
The S.F.B.M. was having all kinds of problems early on, including a lack of silver used in the
refining or parting process and a lack of parting acids. For appearance and demand demand purposes
it made sense to try to coin as many double eagles as possible. The 1854-S half and quarter eagles were
left behind in the dust so to speak.
I know folks will say wait a minute, California gold dust naturally contained silver as an impurity, but the
refining or parting ratio was (if my memory serves me correctly) 2:1 or two parts of silver to 1 part of gold
in the melting pot. So it took a while for them to get on their feet, or build up a sufficient supply of silver.
The acid shortage used in the parting or separation process of native California gold from it's impurities
was a more troublesome plague early on in the S.F.B.M.'s history.
I do believe these pieces entered circulation in 1854. A date and mintmark that is rich in history.
The "new" coin shows a bag mark on the front of the neck.
The "old" coin seems to have something there in the same location, about the same size and orientation.