Well, it had been a bit quiet in my collection, but here is my latest find.




It is a 2 Centimes from Belgium, made under the regence of Leopold I.

I will take you through a discovery, which is very exciting for me, as a collector of Belgian errorcoins and varieties. Hope you can follow the story

First of all: How do I know it had to be a coin that's made in 1835 or 1836?

Well, in Krause and other catalogs, you will see that is a mention of 'Struck over 1 Cent of The Netherlands'.
In the beginning of producing coins after our independence, we had a great need for planchets to strike our new money on. The easiest way to do that, was to use planchets from our old friends, The Netherlands. Traces of the old Dutch coin, are almost always easy to find. They are harder to find with very clear traces. The hardest ones, are those which still show the date of the old Dutch coin.

1 Cent of The Netherlands:


So this one is from 1835 or 1836. Also the T in Cent holds a clue. In this period, many of the coins that were struck over Dutch 1 cents, the T wasn't fully formed. The foot of the T in the die is clogged on the right side.

The next thing that catched my attention, was the severe die clashing, as is quite common on Belgian coinage. But still, a nice addition, and also a good opportunity to explain this fenomenon. During the striking of coins, it is necessary that there is always a planchet fed between the dies. If not, the dies may hit eachother, and damage them by transferring their design. The highest points of the die (the deepest regions on the coin) get damaged first. On this type of coins, it is especially the part in the middle, the triangle under the belly of the lion. There you can see the mirrored image of the monogram of the obverse. (These coins are in coin alignment)

Sample of the reverse of this type:


And ofcourse, I might mention that there is a large part of the coin, that has been struck against an already struck coin. However, I don't understand how that part could stay blanc. It is something that makes me think of the coins I have with large CUD's. It looks the same, but is impossible, since there is no broken die involved here.

What do you guys think that happened here?

Thanks in advance

Jos from Belgium

Somebody told me, that there is a simple explanation for this.
The coin, that was struck before this one, was struck a tiny bit offcenter, maybe even causing it to stick to the die for that reason. So the capped die-planchet, was slightly offcenter. This is the only explanation so far that I can believe. The only thing that wonders me though, is why the unstruck part of this brockage, isn't more bent. When you see an indent, which this should be called, the undented part of the coin is always much thicker than the rest of the coin.

Or has it to do with the degree of the surface that is covered by the second coin?

Regards

Jos

Neat!