This looks like the real thing. If it is, it's the first overstruck CM I've seen that's later than 1763.

Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment


Steve

( see also the earlier discussion http://www.coinpeople.com/index.php?showtopic=17281)

Nice find, Steve! Don't often see a three-legged eagle on these coins.

Very nice overstrike!
I havent seen too many of these other than the coin i showed in the thread you noted. The only thing that catches my eye is that the "C" is to the left of the scepter axis, vs. to the right (closer to the eagles tail) as typical of CM coins. Possibly the die started out as CPM, and was modified for use at Sestroretsk? Or possibly this is a CPM mintmark coin, that was obscured by the overstrike? Do you have a closeup of the mintmark? I think i see a cyrillic "P" at the tip of the undercoin scepter.

Also, i note this is the first 2 headed, 3 legged eagle i have seen!

You may well be correct! Now I believe it could be a CP M. I need to look a little more closely.

Steve

Agreed...1766CPM. It's a nice overstrike, but a 1766CM would have been something special. Ah well.

Steve

CM 5 kopeks are just interesting - from what I see, they look like the eagles are much deeply engraved and therefore look like the eagles are on steroids or just "plump" in general.

If I am not wrong, SPB mintmark start off from the letter "y" of "pyat kopek" whereas the letter "C" starts off from the letter "t"

I am somewhat sensing that they had different technologies to St. Petersburg - more to research

And then of course we have the case of the CP M --> CM dies of 1763 and 1764. In rare cases you can see where the P was either punched over by a C, or else buffed out at the mint (but still visible). There is a short article that illustrates this in JRNS14, and another in JRNS32 (by our board-mate Sigi).

Steve

More than enough reasons for me to buy the entire JRNS as I'm clearly outdated and unknowledgable enough.

This coin is a wonderful overstrike. Each time i look at it, i pick out more detail of the undercoin. the digits "10" are camouflaged in the wreath, but quite clear once you see them.

Steve has kindly provided a scan for both articles - thank you very much!!!

Steve, now I'm more puzzled than ever before. This is something I have thought of and I never saw any connection until I have read this article.

According to Uzdenikov, major mints were setup to overstrike coins in 1763. However there were other "temporary" mints that were setup, that are Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslav, Smolensk Guberna, Arkhangelsk and Polotsk. From my perception of overstriking, overstriking of coins are done if there is a huge amount of them circulating around the area and therefore these temporary mints were setup. I can only imagine that most of the temporary mints received dies from either MM, EM or SPB. (actually what mintmarks did these temporary mints get? ) CM is going to be a questionable one.

As I have not much clue about Russian geography, I decided to google it up:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?count...nt%20Petersburg

What I would question is that is if there were enough 1762 10 kopeks around that area - considering that St. Petersburg had the spare capacity to overstrike most of the coins collected from the Southern and Eastern part of Russia, that leaves CM to overstrike coins from only the northern region which is Vyborg, otherwise any further up is Finland. Not too many coins to be overstruck I guess. What is more puzzling is that the only coins that CM struck after 1762 is only 5 kopeks - why? I am starting to edge towards the opinion of new planchets used in CM instead of 1762 10 kopeks - it's just because there weren't even much coins to be overstruck in the first place therefore CM decided to strike their own coins.

In theory, if there were any other overstruck coins that came in after 1763, it's just a few other 10 kopeks coins that popped in that got overstruck. Given that it was an armoury in the past, I would suspect that they had some kind of unusual technology not used in any other mints as it is the very mint that experimented with the copper ruble.

About the 1764 "CM" 5 kopek, I'm not convinced if it's actually a genuine CM coin that was modified from the SPB mintmark. I personally believe that it's a die greased coin with the mintmark filled and it was a trial strike by SPB although it may sound too coincidental for the letter "P" to be filled.

By the way Steve, are overdates for CM coins well known? I was checking out molotok and I couldn't read this date:
http://www.molotok.ru/item272653019_5_kope...a_sm_2115_.html

Is it a 1766/5 or just 1765 as the title suggest?

The Molotok coin looks like a 5/4 which is a well known CM overdate. 1765/4 and 1765/3 are both published in the Brekke-Bakken tables and the 1765/4 is not too hard to find.

1766CM is a different matter. I have seen a 1766CM where the last 6 has been carefully recut from a 5, but they're scarce and aren't listed in Brekke-Bakken.

As far as the Sestroretsk/St Petersburg chronology and die preparation, this is discussed somewhat in Brekke-Bakken (p56).
Basically Moscow, Sestroretsk, and Ekaterinburg were given the job early in 1763. St Petersburg geared up later that year and soon took over most or more likely all of the copper overstriking program from CM. So the only CM overstrikes we see are those from early 1763; thereafter its all new planchets as far as anyone has yet seen. The story of heavy machinery completely erasing the under-coin (proposed because somebody somewhere said all CM coins were overstrikes) is no longer needed.

Steve

(sorry...I started a 'quick edit' on my prior post and it turned into something more serious and really should be a new 'reply')

Well let's look at 2 Kopeks.

Bitkin says that all no-mintmark 2 Kopeks of 1763,1766, and 1767 were produced at Sestroretsk. These are pretty rare.
Diakov says it differently, referring to No.34 in the Grand Duke corpus "All no m.m. 2-kopecks were overstruck on earlier issues at SPB between 1763-1767".

What is the story? Where were they produced? Did, perhaps, "SPB" to the Grand Duke mean "SPB and any nearby mint under the close direction of SPB" (including Sestroretsk)?

From the 5 Kopeck discussion, it appears CM started overstriking in 1763 but later that year moved on to new planchet 5Ks, handing off the overstriking job to CPM. It seems likely, therefore, that CM would have produced some over-struck 2Ks in 1763 (without mintmark) as per Bitkin. But what happened next?


St. Petersburg overstrikes from 1763-67 (relatively easy to find) carry the CPM mintmark? Of the 7 no-mint 2K's for which I have images (5-1763, 1-1766, 1-1767), all but one are obviously overstruck (the exception I can't tell...it's too pitted).
Why would CPM produce overstruck 2Ks with no-mintmark in 1766 or 1767? Mint error? Possibly. But perhaps these did indeed come from Sestroretsk, in agreement with Bitkin.

This would have a number of interesting implications, namely
(1) The overstriking program wasn't entirely handed over to CPM late in 1763.
(2) The theory of heavy presses obliterating the undercoin is yet again not needed because we clearly see the undercoin on the no -minmark 2Ks.

If (1) & (2) are true, we may yet see an overstruck CM 5K from 1764-1767.

Perhaps a 2K die study would provide some answers.

Steve

Here is note No.34 from the Grand Duke Corpus.
Would somebody please be so kind as to carefully translate.

Click to view attachment

Thanks in advance

Steve

Steve - thank you for sharing your opinion! Very interesting theory indeed! Now I should get major reference books mentioned.

Hi Steve, I can only translate from the French text of the Quarterman reprint. There it says, "All the 2kopecks without mintmark of 1763-67 were overstruck on earlier coins at the St.Petersburg mint. It is not known whether the dies were without letters or whether the latter do not show." Sigi

Thanks Sigi! That's great.

Steve

OK. This is a 1766CM. Crossing over the last 6 at an angle is what looks like the top of a T.
Click to view attachment

I've rotated a negative of the coin 45 degrees, and enhanced the contrast to get this:
Click to view attachment

In photoshop I overlaid the obverse from a 1762 10K (not shown here) after carefully matching the image sizes. By fading the 10K layer in and out, I can see that the top of the T in DECYATB matches exactly. One note of concern...I did have to first shift the 10K layer slightly horizontally left before matching...if there is an undercoin it may have been a slightly off center strike.

I'm hunting for a second piece of evidence in this coin to be sure...there are tantalizing fragments that don't quite cut it. If any overstrike hunters want to give it a shot I'll email the original JPGs.

Steve

Steve, I would like to request a higher image resolution. I'm thinking that the rotation should be 60 degrees anti clockwise instead of 45 but I don't think I should comment any further until I get a higher resolution - but I think it definately looks promising.

Yes, anticlockwise is correct.
The higher resolution images and the reference 1762 10K images have been emailed.


Steve

Thanks Steve, I'm actually more confident to declare it as an overstrike - writeup will be coming soon. And yes, I am certain that the rotation is 65* degrees anticlockwise - the stem of the figure "1" should be relatively obvious and from there, everything makes sense except for the obvious "T" which I am still quite stumped.

*edit

I've figured out why this is much harder to analyze than I thought, or I hope I did - it seems to be double struck initally and hopefully these outlines make it clearer of what is going on. The figure 7 is definately very clear although I am not able to see the other figures at the moment.

This is the image rotated 65 degrees anti clockwise


Now this is the extremely tricky bit - the first two clues that should appear is the drums and the figure "1". I believe there are two of them which is shown here:



The figure 7 also appears if you look at the region carefully. My eyes are a bit strained at the moment otherwise I would be looking harder for more clues.

Do others see it as I do? If it is as what I see it is, it's definately an overstrike as I see it at the moment.

I feel like I'm looking at a Rorschach inkblot test. If I see something, is it really there, or is it only there because my mind projects that into the image?

The coin does look like an overstrike to me from the broad flan and the lack of detail on the wreath. But I don't see much of the undertype surviving, even with the benefit of gx's highlighting of the places where the traces of the undertype are thought to exist.

Here are the closeup of the points that I see:







Hopefully it looks more obvious this time.

It is now. Thank you, gx.

Well I have to admit I'm having a hard time here. GX and Squirrel (privately) have done a great job trying to match more features. Squirrel took the Top of the T as given, then went on to look for hints of the flags and cannons based on a high quality image from AAlborg II. GX identified a possible foot of the large '1' (at which point the T-top doesn't fit) and then found several other features which, as yet, I can't see

We also know that there were several dies used in the 1762 10Ks and choosing a different one as the reference layer in photoshop is going to give different placements for other features. Likewise, if the top-of-theT rotational alignment is out by even a little, other features further away are going to out of position by a lot more (making it difficult to match). I've seen a reference 10K where the top-of-the-T is actually sloped a few degrees and that would throw everything off.

I'll look some more, but this one may have to remain in the class of 'possible', and I would still hope that someday we'll see some stronger evidence.

Thanks everyone for the comments and hard work

Steve

Steve, would you by any chance have any images of a bizarre looking 1762 10 kopek that has been struck at least twice or more? I'm hoping that Squirrel can see what I am looking at.

I would agree Steve. Having seen the high res. image of the "T" this is a clearly stuck feature, not an illusion (ink blot analogy) seen in corrosion or swirls of dirt/patina etc. or random metal flow.

The conclusions can be drawn from that evidence alone.

I say overstrike.

I don't immediately recall seeing a double struck 10K but I'll take another look. I have images of at least 100 10Ks

Steve

Hi Steve,
I did not find any details undertype for 5 kop.CM 1764-1767 in my collection. Will post images later.
Rarenum.

Thank you very much for checking!

GX, I can't see any double struck 10Ks. There are plenty that show a lot of Elizabeth under-coin, but none that shows an obvious double-strike error.

Steve

GX, I do see the areas you see. The double strike eludes me, but the area of curl at the foot of the "1" is interesting.

here are the two areas that caught my eye. The upper right arrow points to what could be tips of the 2 flagpoles at 4 o'clock. The lower arrow points to what could be the breach (back end) of the cannon.

I can see only flow metal ,then was struck.

Here is a rough flash video that I made that I believe the orientation should be (Flash player will be required) - a lot easier to describe with pictures instead of verbal words. I might be off with the second image but I am sure the orientation of the first one is right.

Please kindly spare a minute to view the contrasting feature - I hope this is more useful especially to pinpoint where I was highlighting.

http://img221.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1766contrastvj6.swf

It does get dizzy after some time. Note, you can increase the resolution up to 1000x1000

Very nice job...it definitely illustrates your point (would also make a nice screensaver). I still need to look at it some more as parts of the cannon/drum I still don't see yet.

About the double-struck undercoin theory. It's an interesting interpretation but it does seem unlikely. A grossly double-struck 1762 10K cannot have been very common (I don't see any in my 100+ database examples. The combined probability of finally seeing a post-1763 CM overstrike along with a double-struck 10K (which I've yet to see) is going to be very small. Not impossible, mind you, but unlikely. We'd have to be really lucky to discover both in one coin. Even if we were to accept this as an overstrike I'd say any extra features would be more likely to come from an Elizabeth 5K under-under-coin.

I'm not sure anyone has looked for double struck Peter III coppers before (in any denomination). We do see many 10K undercoins on CPM and EM and MM 5Ks so possibly we can find a double-10K there...yet another thing to start looking for (though I think that's less important than finding a CM overstrike).

Steve

Steve, there are times that I wonder about how overstriking can be an excellent opportunity to get rid of problematic coins. Bill Synder has a wonderful off center 5 kopek coin that was overstruck to the Baroque kopek:



Thanks Bill

I really have no idea how common such error coins exist which overstriking is used to fix up "problems".

That is a really neat coin!

Hi GX. I think if the mint caught an error in time, they'd likely overstrike it immediately (to the same denomination) and release it. If such a corrected coin later came back to the mint for overstriking (as the copper standard changed) we'd get a new denomination with a double-struck under-coin.

If the mint didn't correct the error, the coin would go out into circulation. There's no real point keeping it on hand waiting for a possible future overstriking program. The coin you've shown (very nice ) is likely a circulating error 5K that came back to the mint later.

Steve