alexbq2

Most of results are up. I've been outbid on all lots. A couple of times just by 25 CHF.

Any news from Sincona? I keep getting outbid messages.

Allegedly this is a clone. Read the Russian forum. The item was taken off the auction block by the seller.

Watch out this coin may be a high quality fake, I'm not sure but it was highlighted on Coins.su

http://www.ebay.com/itm/381379981585

Read about these remarkably high quality fakes here:

http://coins.su/forum/index.php?showtopic=167902&page=10

Hi Dwight,

The reason for the existence of Siberian regional coinage, is that the copper ore contained significant traces of gold and silver, but not significant enough to be worth the extraction of these precious metals. As such it was decided to make these regional coins at a lighter weight scale than the standard coinage. For example a standard 5 kopeck of that time should weigh 51.2 grams, so if there was a copper 10 kopecks it should weigh 102.4 grams, while the Siberian 10 kopecks weighs 65.5 grams.

The coins, in my opinion are on par with the coins minted at Ekaterinburgh. Nice examples could sometimes be found. Sigi has many: http://www.sigistenz.com/

I have a couple:

1810 Polushka EM sold for $511:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/361333313560

Another coin for show and tell. Not much to tell, except that it is very attractive.

-mike

A very pleasant coin!

You are absolutely correct. After my initial shock had passed, I figured that it must have been a 78 or 79. Your comparison shows clearly that it is 79.

1770 5 kopecks with a 1780's eagle?!!! How is this possible?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/361320244728

These coins are notorious for week and uneven strikes, that's the most likely explanation for the missing letter, but it would be good to see better pictures.

Hi al,

 

Pardon if this is general knowledge, I'm rather ignorant on the history of the coinage of this period.

What is the conventional explanation for these die pairings?

Are there any good speculations on why such coins exist?

Why would these eagle dies be retrieved to make coins?

 

The dies are not particularly attractive or special in any way that I can tell.

It seems rather odd that they would be needed.

 

Thanks,

-mike

My guess would be just the huge mintage volume for these coins. This mule was probably unintentional, just a necessity to keep the production running. A 1770 type die broke, an old die was pulled of the shelf to keep things going.

A note on the 1763 M/M. IgorS could you share the full size picture you took of the eagle? I shared the link here: http://coins.su/forum/index.php?showtopic=164181&page=5

There does seem to be a ghost 'M' to the left of the eagle.

Thanks for confirming, I was shocked as well. I don't think I've ever seen 1774 with the old eagle. Congrats to the new owner!!!

I'm going to wait for Sigi to weigh in on this 5 kopecks, but at the first glance isn't that the 1768-1769 eagle?! I would not expect to see it in 1774!!!

Something is very wrong with the overstruck coin mars. I'm certain it's meant to be a polushka overstruck over an older polushka but the details of it is just very wrong.

 

 

My best guess is that it's a contemporary counterfeit. That said, it's pretty intriguing.

Polushka should have the rope edge. This coin has net edge, so the original was a denga. My guess is a kopeck made out of a denga, which would make sense for a contemporary counterfeiter as you said.

Hard to find these in such grade! What did the one being replaced looked like?

This is my point. Old Elizabeth dies, no mm, 1762/3 date, struck on 1762 10K of Peter III.

Sigi, can you provide an enlarged date as well, from your image?

 

 

edit: Bitkin catalogs 1763 no mintmark (R3) under Ekaterinaberg Mint

Bitkin was mistaken. Compare the eagle on Igor's coin with the MM and EM coins of the same period:

I am using Sigi's collection to illustrate (fair use principle!):

As you can see the eagle on the 1763 no m/m is clearly of the type used at the Moscow Mint.

On the other hand the 1765 no m/m is from Ekaterinburgh:

As such I do not believe that the Elizabeth die's could have been used to produce Igor's coin as those would have had the MM mint mark.

So, this was overstruck with Dies from Elizabeth, and the 3 is an overdate?

I don't think so, this is a classic Moscow mint die used for the overstriking of the 1762 10 kopecks. On Elizabeth's 5 coins from the Moscow mint there was a mint mark - MM.

These are fantastically RARE coins, I'm glad you showed us these photos. Many Thanks!

P.S. I was hoping that we would see such treasures in this thread, I hope other collectors will show us their best and favorite coins.

I've always had problems booking a right hotel in foreign cities. Either they were too far from my points of interests or too far from my standards :-)

 

But this year, I feel like I won a lottery. When I visit Zurich, I always stay in one of the Zahringerstrasse small hotels. This year, the Sincona auction will be held literally 2 blocks away - in the Limmatquau 112 office !

 

Just perfect for me !

Have fun, and keep us updated!

What do you think ?

Is it Proof?

Here's a couple more:

and try a darker background for darker coins and lighter for white...

I find that the opposite will give a better contrast and a more realistic color representation. Dark coins on dark background will look much lighter than they really are, and silver on white will look darker.

Hi Sigi,

 

I tried to take a better picture today, but the coin is dark and I cannot get enough light (today is not sunny so far). In any case. I uploaded the new image to Omnicoin and it automatically updated in all the posts where it shows.

I think if you have any kind of a light source, and adjust your white balance for the background, the photo will turn out pretty good.

I am back and discovered very impressive about 22,000 views for this topic !

Thank you all viewers and readers !

Welcome back indeed! Time to open an equally popular discussion!!!