extant4cell Posted January 2, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2013 M looks a little different and T has a different angle. Thank you Alex for this picture! What was wrong with that one exactly? I don't like the look of M on my coin, but the positioning of the letters (that I didn't like in a start) seam to be probable. Here are a couple somewhat similar TMs (big T and skinny M): http://www.mcsearch.info/record.html?id=299851 http://www.mcsearch.info/record.html?id=162217 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extant4cell Posted January 2, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2013 OMG I have a lot of coins... just some of them without any pictures... I went through the boxes in the garage and found coins from my old collection. I have lots of fun now looking through them I found the coin in question and updated it on OmniCoin. Sorry, pictures made quickly. Here it is: and the parts in question enlarged: Looks like it is 1788. T in TM has mechanical damage by the look of it. I thought the edge was a smoothed out inscription, but I'm not so sure now: As far as I know 2 kopecks (this type) edge was only in rope, netted, inscription or ornamented. Please comment... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexbq2 Posted January 2, 2013 Report Share Posted January 2, 2013 M looks a little different and T has a different angle. Thank you Alex for this picture! What was wrong with that one exactly? There were no overstirikes at the TM mint. Thanks for the new pictures for your coin! Look at the denomination inscription. It looks like O in Kopeiki is squished looks almost like an I, and the last K and И are just bars | | | |. Whoever made this coin got really tired by the end. But I still think they were trying to make a TM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexbq2 Posted January 2, 2013 Report Share Posted January 2, 2013 I thought the edge was a smoothed out inscription, but I'm not so sure now: As far as I know 2 kopecks (this type) edge was only in rope, netted, inscription or ornamented. Please comment... Actually, none of the 2 kopeek coins of this type were purposefully made with an edge inscription. The edge inscription came from the 1755-57 1 kopeek coins. Moscow, Sestroretsk and St. Petersburg mints were re-edging all coins that they overstruck. Ekaterinburg mint didn't, at least not the coins with the denomination above St. George. Ekaterinburg also used edged inscription blanks prepared for the 1757 kopeek to make the 2 kopeeks with the inscription below St. George. As a result one can find coins with inscriptions above and below St. George with Ekaterinburg edge. Moscow edge is more challenging, and was not even listed in most catalogs until recently. Seems that these coins accidentally skipped re-edging at Moscow (and maybe St/ Petersburg) mints. I was lucky to find one such coin this year. And since it looks like 1 kopeek coins with St. Petersburg edge were limited to a few trial pieces, there are no known overstrikes with that edge. So a 1788 overstrike with an edge inscription would be made out of a 4 kopeek coin struck on one of those earlier 2 kopeeks that I described above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extant4cell Posted January 2, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2013 On the physical inspection, this one doesn't look like an overstrike. I could not find any overstrike details and the field looks pretty smooth and solid. The "Two Kopeks" part is sharp enough just to suit the rest of the coin. The problem with photographing it is that it is covered with coin wax or lacquer as someone tried to use it on this coin to see what the result would be, but didn't use it to the rest of it. It's hard to say what the edge looked like as it is beaten. I can not see any "netted" or "rope" details, unless they are smoothed out, but when I feel it with my finger it feels as smoothed out "inscription" edge, but again, I can not find a single trace of lettering. In any case, even with better pictures I still don't know how to classify this coin. Coin doesn't look or feel like a fake. It actually gives a good feel about it when you hold it. It doesn't look like an overstrike (that was original description by the seller, and I kept it for file names so far. I'll change them once I know that it is). Is it possible that it was a recut die? or that someone tooled with it, trying to change the lettering? Both are possible, I guess, as both letters are a little out of wack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexbq2 Posted January 2, 2013 Report Share Posted January 2, 2013 As far as your coin is concerned I would say that none of the elements of design of either side of the coin look genuine. Once again just try to read the denomination. I do believe that this was meant to be a TM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squirrel Posted January 2, 2013 Report Share Posted January 2, 2013 IMHO that coin is very suspect. In addition to the above observations, there seems to have been an effort to remove casting evidence on the edge. Does it pass the ring test? balance the coin on the tip of your finger, and ding the coin with another coin, gently, and listen for a high pitch ringing tone that lingers. A cast coin will go "clunk" and sound dead. Also, the patina looks suspicious at best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extant4cell Posted January 3, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2013 For the coin covered with wax it did ring well enough. There was no clunk sound, Squirrel, but the high pitch ringing did not exactly lingered. Again, I believe that wax is a problem on the coin (or artificial patina, or even patina looking paint/putty as you may suspect). I don't know if it was tempered with or not, and if its patina is genuine at all (it looks genuine to me, with some dark brown and dark green areas, but it definitely was kind of ruined by wax). The coin on a whole, I agree with you, that if someone tried to sell me a coin like this one for big money, I would be researching it and treating this coin with a big, healthy chunk of suspiciousness. I also agree with you Alex, that "Dve Kopejiki" inscription looks very strange, paticular the "o". I will leave it at that for now. But if any other thoughts or information will come up about this coin, please share. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxseries Posted January 3, 2013 Report Share Posted January 3, 2013 The monograms for TM coins should be known for slightly tighter or bold monograms. This coin seems more like it was modified from other coins. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extant4cell Posted January 5, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 5, 2013 After help from everyone here, alas, I must agree with you. Looks like it is somebody's doing... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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