1942 Glass Cent Patterns

@fiftysevener said:
Was this one Roger's coin ?

there is a thread about this when he purchased it from an online auction site if you do a search.

probably a lot of good info/ pics. unless the forum update killed the links.
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@Zoins said:
Here's the TrueView for an upcoming piece offered by HA. To protect it from further harm, PCGS slabbed it inside a cointain:

And the discovery piece again for comparison:

I must have missed this notice that a piece was slabbed inside a Kointain. Excellent idea! I have used Kointains since the 1970's and they are great protection!

@CaptHenway said:

@RogerB said:
Some of the surface defects resulted from having a red hot glass "blank" pressed by room temperature steel dies. (They weren't really struck in the sense a metal coin is struck.) In production, Blue Ridge Glass Co. proposed to heat the dies nearly to the same temperature as the red-hot glass.

The reference book on all of the World War II patterns is "Pattern and Experimental Pieces of WW-II."

How in the world could they have modified a coin press to heat the dies?

The process and equipment would be suitable for glass manufacturing, not stamping metal. Glass is relatively soft when it’s pressed, so high pressures aren’t needed. A gob of glass is dropped from the furnace into the mold (die) containing one side of the design and then quickly pressed using a top mold while the glass is still soft. I believe the “die” would actually be a mold similar to other small, flat pressed items made by Blue Ridge Glass, in which case it would be easy to heat as the equipment is already in place.

It’s difficult to be certain from the pics, but I don’t see any significant “chill marks” on the pieces. Chill marks are waves or ripples that form when the surface of the hot glass quickly cools as it contacts a cold mold. This indicates the molds were heated prior to pressing. Also, the edges/rims appear smooth, which usually requires a flame polish operation prior to going into the lehr (annealing oven)

Edit to add:

YouTube video of glass beads being pressed. These are pressed from a ribbon of soft glass. Blue Ridge may have used this method for small objects instead of dropping a gob of soft glass into individual molds. Either way, the molds are heated and the pressing pressures are much lower than metal stamping

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH73nxnfOhE

Another bump