bizarre Italy coin

rmuniak · January 30, 2021 3:43PM

Has anyone ever seen something like this. km27 italy 1893 10 centesimi. struck backwards. The back is barely visible

rmuniak · January 30, 2021 3:47PM

Sorry this is reverse

realeswatcher · January 30, 2021 4:10PM

Looks to be a legitimate brockage error... which is observed on Italian pieces of this era.

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?term=centesimi+(brockage+incuse)&category=1-2&en=1&de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1&images=1&thesaurus=1&order=3&currency=usd&company=

I say "looks to be" because the other side (which should show that design - but correctly struck) is so worn that it shows ZERO detail that I can see... so a "press job" can't be definitively ruled out.

Sapyx · January 30, 2021 7:39PM

For a coin to be "struck backwards", it has to be struck by another coin, rather than by the die. This can happen in two ways:

It can happen in the mint, when a coin gets stuck in the coinage press rather than ejected as normal. The first coin then "becomes the die" for the second, and the second coin receives a mirror-image impression. This is a mint error, called a "brockage".
It can happen in the backyard shed, by squeezing a coin into a blank flat piece of metal. This is most usually done to create a circulating coujnterfeit coin, which looks real enough at first glance until you look closely and see it's actually mirror-reversed. They were not intended to conuse coin collectors. These counterfeits are called "slugs".

Your coin is of the second type. The off-centre strike, in conjunction with the complete lack of detail on the other side, indicate this was not done at the mint but is rather a private counterfeit.

rmuniak · January 31, 2021 6:16AM

Thanks guys I knew you would come to a logical explanation. So I will add it to my curiosity coins.

EBSnumismatics · February 1, 2021 11:27AM

Looks like a vice job to me.

bizarre Italy coin

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