Gobrecht's 1843 Design Layout Model Cent - Update
Rexford
Posts: 1,216 ✭✭✭✭✭
Some of you may have seen my earlier thread on this piece, where I go into detail about what it is, the pedigree, and other background information. It is now in the following PCGS holder:
TrueView:
After receiving it back in hand, I noticed that the engraving work was in fact first carved and then traced with black ink, which wasn’t totally apparent from the photos I had available in the meantime. This is a technique that I have seen employed on many foreign prize medals in order to make hand-engraved details more visually apparent, but it’s interesting that it was utilized by an employee of the US Mint here. Because of how carefully this piece was stored, and perhaps due to the relatively few hands it has passed through since its creation, much of the original ink remains.
The inking is only done over the areas of the final engraved design and over many of its corresponding guidelines (on both sides), and not over the engraved areas upon the piece that were scratched out and redone (this only occurs on the obverse). For example, you may notice a scratch on the cheek of the portrait in the TrueView; in fact, this is the scratching out of a continuous rim-to-rim horizontal guideline that is located at a slight angle to the inked-in "final" horizontal guideline, beginning one bead below it at the left rim and three beads above it at the right:
By mapping out all of the engraved-and-then-scratched-out areas of the piece, which are also the areas that are not inked in, we may construct a layout of an initial design that was engraved upon the coin. The initial stars and horizontal/vertical guidelines are accurately represented in the following image, but the lines representing the date box are a bit rough as there are a lot of engraved lines in that area and it's hard to tell what's going on:
Evidently, midway through the engraving process, and after the stars and at least part of the date box were engraved, the engraver decided to ditch that design and rearrange the engraved layout. He seems to have done this directly after engraving the vertical guideline, which only goes halfway down the face of coin, unlike the other guidelines. You may notice that in this initial layout, the horizontal and vertical guidelines are not perpendicular, as they are in the final design. I assume that the vertical guideline represents the rotation of the portrait, while the horizontal guideline represents the rotation of the stars. You can see that the two horizontal guidelines each line up with their corresponding stars in this way. However, since the engraver had not yet begun to trace the portrait before he switched tactics, the initial vertical guideline does not visually align with anything. Edit: ignore this part
It is interesting as well that the scratched-out stars and corresponding horizontal guideline line up roughly parallel with the scratched-out date, as pictured below. The uppermost star and date also line up in the final engraved design.
One would think that if the arrangement of the stars and date were identical in the initial and final engravings, there would be no need to re-engrave everything at this point, and instead the engraved portrait could simply be rotated counterclockwise to match that initial engraved layout of the stars and date. But, this discounts that there is a reverse to this coin, and that the obverse and reverse are at a 180° rotation to one another. If Gobrecht had continued with the initial design, the date and uppermost star would not be centered opposite the reverse design. In the final engraved design, they are.
Comments
Very impressive piece, and thank you for the detailed write-up. It helps to analyze/understand the piece. Cheers, RickO
I also have to add my congratulations to your thorough research and acquisition. It is a spectacular piece and shows how the mint really did what they did back then.
Rexford nice historical coin. There could be a paper trail at the Archives. I am on the opposite side of the U.S. so I can’t be of much help.
In general I think the Archives are still closed for in person research.
Thanks! I’ve looked through tens of thousands of pages of archives (mostly 1860s-90s correspondence and auction records, but also any contemporary documents I could find) but unfortunately the surviving Mint records of the period do not often go into detail about such things. The farthest back I am able to trace it is to a collection of Large Cents that was amassed in Philadelphia in the 1890s, likely purchased from dealer J.C. Randall. Randall had direct connections to the Mint and may have bought it there in person as a damaged Proof, without a paper trail (and individual sales weren’t recorded by the Mint for a long time).
Gobrecht's Engraved Mature Head Large Cent Model
https://www.instagram.com/rexrarities/?hl=en
Fascinating.
My 1866 Philly Mint Set
Decided to draw this up a little better so it's a little less confusing:
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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Initial Engraved Obverse Detail
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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Final Engraved Obverse Detail
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I made one further conclusion, which is that the vertical guideline in the first image (red tracing) is not actually part of that initial design at all, which is why it's not perpendicular to the horizontal guideline. Actually, it seems to just be a mistake that was made when engraving the second and final design. It would seem that after going about halfway down the face of the coin, the engraver realized he was off by a hair, stopped, and recreated the line at a slightly counterclockwise position.
So the thought process seems to be as follows:
a) Engrave the horizontal guideline, large circular guidelines (to place the stars), then the stars and date box
b) Realize that the engraved design is not centered opposite the reverse design
c) Scratch out everything
d) Re-engrave the horizontal guideline, corresponding stars, and date box
e) Start to engrave the vertical guideline and realize measured slightly off
f) Scratch out the vertical guideline and re-engrave it
g) Engrave the portrait
This will probably be my final update. I think I might have gotten everything I can out of this piece!
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Gobrecht's Engraved Mature Head Large Cent Model
https://www.instagram.com/rexrarities/?hl=en
Awesome update! Congrats on having it recognized.
What is your plan for the coin? Auction, personal collection?
Latin American Collection
What is code 80 in the serial number?
Thanks! I think it will stay in my personal collection for a few years at least. I'd like it to be more officially recognized as a separate type and referenced in a book somewhere, most likely Judd, but that will take some time.
Gobrecht's Engraved Mature Head Large Cent Model
https://www.instagram.com/rexrarities/?hl=en
It's the obsolete code for all Details coins and in this case seems to have been given as a sort of "No Grade, but also not Details for a particular reason" designation. Or in other words, "we don't want to grade it," which I can understand.
Gobrecht's Engraved Mature Head Large Cent Model
https://www.instagram.com/rexrarities/?hl=en
Good call.
Latin American Collection