Seated Halves in upcoming Heritage lot - Questionable chopmarks

MilkmanDan · October 21, 2018 9:01AM

There's an interesting lot coming up at Heritage in the early November timeframe. The lot features three seated halves, an 1858-O, an 1859-S and an 1861-S, all three with chopmarks. There's something off to me, when I look at the overall condition and chopmarks. Here's what I'm seeing:

1 - The chopmarks are small and placed close together, consistently placed around Liberty and the Eagle in the fields, but never centered.

2 - The chopmarks are fairly small AND intricate, not normal for chopmarks of any period

3 - Some of the chopmarks are "double punched", as if the first punch wasn't strong enough so they whacked it again. This is very uncommon.

4 - It appears that some chops are shared in common between the coins, which basically never happens in the wild. Sure the same punch was used for multiple coins, but to match up two coins with the same punch is nearly impossible, let alone to share the same punch between two coins in the same auction lot.

If you look closely, you'll also notice that some of the chopmarks look to cover up tooling or other damage. It looks to me like someone is trying to convert a few $25-$30 damaged coins into something more. These coins, with legitimate chopmarks, would fetch between $150-$250.

What do you all think?

TennesseeDave · October 21, 2018 9:19AM

I believe that you are correct. Most of the chops appear to be doubled as well which is also unusual.

TomB · October 21, 2018 9:36AM

I agree with your analysis and it is disturbing, in my opinion. Have you contacted Heritage about this?

MilkmanDan · October 21, 2018 9:47AM

@TomB said:
I agree with your analysis and it is disturbing, in my opinion. Have you contacted Heritage about this?

I have not contacted Heritage yet. Wanted to bounce it off of the forum members first, as sometimes you all see things I missed.

291fifth · October 21, 2018 9:55AM

A lot like this can cause trouble for the auction house as well as the buyer. Contact Heritage and give them your observations, which seem very well thought out.

MilkmanDan · October 21, 2018 11:50AM

Yes, I'll be contacting Heritage shortly.

TLeverage · October 21, 2018 1:25PM

Not much about these would make me think that the marks are genuine.

KindaNewish · October 21, 2018 2:38PM

Wow, great catch. And since the serial numbers show that these are all from the same submission, NCG should be able to identify the "doctor" who did this.
I'm just starting to learn about chopmarks, but I did find these two with the same #8 chop in the wild. 1st on a 1805 Mexico 8R, 2nd on a 1886 Hong Kong 20c.

MilkmanDan · October 21, 2018 3:07PM

Nice find. It's definitely possible that the '8' punch is the same, but the 80 year difference in host coin makes me think it's probably not the same. The 8 numeral was one of the most common punches used. With the amount of wear and simplicity of the character, I don't think we can really say one way or the other on this one.

As for NGC and tracing this back to the submitter, that's a great idea. The last thing I want is someone putting a bunch of fake chops out there, throwing shade on one of my favorite areas of numismatics.

EVillageProwler · October 21, 2018 4:16PM

Also, legitimately chopped coins tend to be UNC or minimally circulated so as to be of full weight. Coins this worn after 15 to 20 years means that they were in retail hands. Since when did the retail public send bullion payments to China? (That's rhetorical.)

Edited to add: Nice sleuthing, Dan.