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1943 Cents News
Bigbuck1975
Posts: 1,278 ✭✭✭✭✭
2
Bigbuck1975
Posts: 1,278 ✭✭✭✭✭
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"This incredible group of coins was submitted to NGC by the family of former US Mint employee Albert Michael Pratt."
Certainly a nice discovery for the coin market....and a 20% increase in known population. If required by the USTreasury/Secret Service, could the family prove provenance and that they were legally obtained from sources outside the USMint?
How will this affect the prices of the extent examples? Going down???
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That is an interesting question...."Former Mint employee" just begs for more explanation than "local plumber" does.
Probably one thing going for them is that the Mint/Government seems less interested in errors such as this than they are for coins that "weren't released"....i.e., 1933 DE, 1974 aluminum cent(?), and 1964 Peace dollars.
This was the story that I hinted about last month.
Neat! I wonder if the die crack on the 61 is known and catalogued on a steel yet. It would be cool to compare them both side by side. And to check for same or different reverse markers.
I wonder if this Mint employee was in charge of taking the cracked die out of service but decided to strike a memento while he had the press at his disposal…
Good thing the family didn't send them to the Secret Service for authentication.
There are at least 10+ known different Bust Cuds on
1943 Philly steel cents alone, so there's a good chance
that it matches one of them.
I wasn't able to check it out at the time (ANA Orlando),
but I'm sure someone has gone to Cudsoncoins.com
(I think that's the correct website) to do the comparison.
Albert Michael Pratt (Prednovek) was a die setter at the Philadelphia Mint. He was also skilled in machine tooling.
This info comes from his enlistment records and his 1945 marriage.
JBK.................you were right.
Pete
Just more evidence that there are still 'treasures' out there waiting to be 'discovered'.....Grandma's attic, Uncle Joe's basement, etc., That is what keeps us all looking at coins... To use the phrase from another search mission.... "They are out there...."
Cheers, RickO
For those who are unsure,a "die setter" was the employee who actually put the dies into a press and adjusted the press for production. The press operators did not do this. A die setter was a rank below the foreman and assistant foreman, but was important because he was also authorized to do minor surface repair if the assistant foreman was not available. At Philadelphia the engraving department handed more extensive die repair. but this required a paper train of custody.
Roger,
Thanks for the info on their job descriptions......most informative.
The question is...........did he tell his foreman he was taking those coins (permission?).........or did he secrete them out?
Every case like this has to be handled as a singular incident.
No Matter..............they have been encapsulated.
Pete
If he had been Irish, he would have been an "Irish die Setter."
Or if he was German, he would be "Die die setter!"
You guys crack me up.
He was Czechoslovakian............so he was a Die Czeker.
Pete
Had he worked at the Warsaw Mint, he would have kept the dies in a Pole vault!
He couldn't have taken them from the Mint because they are not Steal cents.
"To Be Esteemed Be Useful" - 1792 Birch Cent --- "I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain." - Lily Tomlin
Rick...keep your day job.......
Think about it why do you think these things only show up after the mint employee has passed.
There are 10,000 comedians out of work, and you guys are tellin' jokes!
They (errors) don't always 'show up after the mint employee has passed'.
That would depend on the definition of passed.
At the time, off-metal pieces were just junk. Not legal tender because they did not meet specifications. [Well...some of our jokes and puns don't meet specifications, either.]
This is a good point. Had he taken them to a coin shop in 1943, what were they worth? Maybe a buck apiece?
But didn't they become fairly famous by the early 1960's or even before? Yet they stayed hidden with the mint worker. Either they forgot about them, remained unaware of their value, or didn't want to stir up problems. Also when they stopped working at the mint may have been a factor in keeping them quiet. Didn't the unique 1943-D also come out of a Mint officials estate?
.
.
"To Be Esteemed Be Useful" - 1792 Birch Cent --- "I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain." - Lily Tomlin
thats a great read and thanks for sharing it
There will be a more in-depth article in
next weeks issue/online of Coin World
To better understand, we have to hitchhike a ride in Dr. Who's TARDIS and go back to the time they were made. Patterns were curiosities, nothing more and they were collected for that reason. They were not coins and not legal tender. All misstruck and off-metal pieces were mistakes and part of normal mass production. They were, again, not coins - they were simply junk. Recycled where possible, but thrown away if not gold, silver or reusable coin-bronze.
Their perceived value today is irrelevant to how and why the were produced or left the Mints.
Sadly, it would have been better NOT to identified them as coming from a former mint employee, but state that they came from an avid coin collector bank teller from Philadelphia.
My career was in manufacturing as a supervisor to manager. We had literally tons of scrap, set ups, etc. that was generated, and a lot of it was tossed in the trash if it did not have a scrap (recycle) value.
Employees could have it for asking.
My hunch is the coins referenced above were considered trash, or even if they were sent out as metal for resmelting, no one cared about a handful of cents back then.
The more I look at it, the more I have come to agree with Bob and Roger. The coins were considered scrap, as they were not fit for circulation. It shows what things were "allowed" to leave the Mint back then.
Pete
I wonder if any paper currency slipped out the back door in the same manner during these "loose" times.
BEP tracked paper currency by serial numbers on each piece. Defective pieces were destroyed on-site.