Looking for an XRF to Use.
Does anyone know of someone in the Baltimore area who has an XRF analyzer and would they allow someone like me to use it for a few hours (under their supervision)? If you do, please let me know who to contact about this because I need to make some progress in this area for the forthcoming 2 Bad Metal publications and to verify the metal/alloy of other varieties I haven’t been able to evaluate this way previously.
All Bad Metal Book Status’
Bad Metal Copper and Nickel has sold something like 600 copies. This is GREAT! But still there are more copies available. The current ERRATA, which is available for download HERE, has not needed to be updated in quite some time.
Bad Metal Silver. 3cS to 25c. I will be creating an ERRATA for this publication sometime in the near future. There are a handful of updates, corrections, new varieties, etc. that need to be documented and shared with everyone. Like the Bad Metal Copper and Nickel ERRATA, this will be available as a free download. There will be a future announcement about this.
On the subject of ERRATA and corrections for this publication is a correction for a Seated Quarter variety. Earlier this year I was shown images a second example of 1844-O TD.3-TD.D. While not documented in the book, I originally had some reservations about this variety being a hand-made die, but concluded that this was just a poorly made transfer die and documented this as such in the book. Well, I believe I am wrong and am changing this variety designation to a hand-made die and calling it 1844-O Z1-V. I've been meaning to publish this update since the start of 2024, and now I've finally gotten around to sharing this information with all of you!
Bad Metal Silver. 50c to Silver Dollars. PROGRESS is being made! Not tons of progress as of late, but here are some of my recent update highlights.
I’m finalizing the counterfeit Silver Dollar chapter soon. I’ve found who owns the last 2 Morgan Dollar VAM varieties I’m looking for and hope to get those images very soon. In addition, sitting in my photo files, unstudied for at least a couple years, was a new hand-made die variety associated with the 1900-O Z2-E I have for sale. This new variety is 1901-O Z1-F. I’ve called this new family Ragged Breast. This just goes to show that I need to study every die struck counterfeit coin shown to me in close detail, and that new varieties still exist to be reported/documented.
The counterfeit half dollars, of all types, are a massive undertaking, and still more information and varieties are being found and documented. This is terrific for completeness, but takes me and others a fair amount of time to put this information and images all together meaningfully. Recently, one collector was able to send me images of just their CBH varieties, and we were able to document at least 3 or 4 new die struck counterfeit varieties. This includes a new 1830 variety associated with the Buck-Toothed Eagle family, an 1838 variety which resulted in a brand-new family association (name pending), an 1837-O(!) variety associated with the Late Comer family, a new 1830 variety which may be a singleton, and finally I was shown a higher-grade example of an 1838-dated variety which has an O mintmark on the reverse and thus we corrected this attribution from 1838 to 1838-O.
Sometime in 2025 the Bad Metal Silver. 50c to Silver Dollars book will be printed/published. Time and money are my most pressing of factors in getting this to completion.
In total, I’ve now documented 981 die struck contemporary counterfeit U.S. coin varieties, and I know of at least 1 more variety yet to include because I’m waiting on better images. WE ARE SO CLOSE TO 1,000 varieties and no doubt we will get there soon enough. As always, please report anything new, something that might be new, or contact me if you have a question about a variety. I'm still fairly responsive, but sometimes it may take me a day or two (sometimes longer if I have work travel).
Other Projects! Riddell Monograph Tribute. I’ve had no time to work on and make updates to this project. There are a handful of Riddell varieties that I now have photo’s of but little/no time to insert those into the project at the moment. With that said, nobody is bugging me about this project so no pressure on me to make these updates...
Website Updates. I have a long list of things I want to do to make this website better and even more user-friendly. However, I have less than no time to work on this too since my regular job is keeping me exceedingly busy for all of 2024 (and maybe beyond).
I hope this was an enjoyable read and update. Hopefully something more exciting comes up to share in the near future. Keep hunting and I hope to see y'all at a show in the near future (November Baltimore is likely my next show).
Best,
Winston
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