Coin Jewelry

What is the point of collecting such ordinary circulating coins?

Well try gold plating them and putting them on a gold chain and bam you got something good. Looking over a recent ad from Macy's the coins instantly jumped out at me. They are Euros on a thin 14 karat 8 inch gold chain at one overvalued original price.

Maybe quality adds some value. Plus gold is doing well too. Seriously $1,200 for this.

I see a Luxembourg Euro Cent and an Austrian 2 Euro Cent piece but none of these have any special value,despite the year being hidden.

Now I may have missed something. Could it be these are solid gold Euro copies, highly doubt it. Are gold chains more valuable then I think at 14k? Maybe I will stop by Macy's and take a look in person.

Well in the future when you find a gold Euro cent in your change and you wonder why please refer to this post. This also applies to any other low grade coin that seems off metal but still weighs the same as a normal coin.

Side  note: This post was possible because I cannot find the Cambodian money I once had and can no longer locate. I may skip it and go to Cayman Islands coins next.

Copperhead Grid by Moyra Davey

Another visit to the The Metropolitan Museum Of Art and I went to see the modern photography section. The first piece in the exhibit is a giant array of photos of circulated United States cents called Copperhead Grid by Moyra Davey.

I SOOOO COULD DO THIS
Really I have actually taken many pictures like this but I did not post them because I thought no one would care. Then again that is what makes Davey an artist, she puts it out there when she gets inspired. Davey's other photo are of everyday items that seemed to become transformed into uniquely beautiful artifacts. 

100 10x8 in. Chromogenic prints make this giant wall of cents.

The verdigris on the coins give a very textured look adding dimension to a worn coin.

 

 

From The Met...
Artist: Moyra Davey (Canadian, born 1958)
Title: Copperhead Grid
Date: 1990, Printed 2009
Medium: Chromogenic prints
Dimensions: Approx. 25.4 x 20.3 cm (10 x 8 in.) each
Credit Line: Purchase, Vital Projects Fund Inc. Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2011

It was in 1990-at the height of a worldwide economic recession that also marked the end of the 1980s art bubble-that Davey began photographing the scratched, worn-away surfaces of pennies, the most devalued and lowest form of currency. Her accumulation of one hundred micro-photographic specimens is constructed around the readymade patterns of decay that countless anonymous owners have unconsciously wrought upon their surfaces; their base materiality is incisively contrasted with the most elevated of national symbols. As with all of Davey's work, there is a melancholic sense of loss that connects subject and form: like pennies, photographs are objects of exchange imprinted by contact with the world around them..

1st thing is the Met calls them pennies which I will excuse as common language, technically they are cents.
2nd thing the most devalued and lowest form of currency is great exaggeration and very much one person's opinion.
3rd thing Davey is Canadian and if she is anything like me foreign cents even when the country is next door is fascinating. 

The value of this art piece is not known, by me at least.

Museum Quality: Part 2

Continuing the March Metropolitan Museum of Art trip I just have a couple of numismatic related items that came to my attention. Aside from my small examples The Met has dozens more ancient coins and coin jewelery. Plus they have some Augustus Saint-Gaudens sculptures and statues. Saint-Gaudens was a famous artist who made many coin design in the 1930s.

Gold aurei coins of the first twelve Caesars mounted in a 19th century bracelet. Inspired by the 2nd century writer Suctonius who write biographies of the first twelve Caesars some made this bracelet out of real ancient coins.

Featured are on the first bracelet are Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. While on the second bracelet are Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian.

Here are some random ancient coins.

Royal Badges - Official coins and medals of various kingdoms.

Silver tetradrachm with the head of Adriadne on one side (not pictured)
and the labyrinth in Knossos.
From Gortyn, Crete, 2nd century B.C.

Silver tetradrachm
with the head of Athena on one side
and the owl in wreath.
From Athens, 135-134 B.C.
I love the owl design because it reminds me of the movie Clash of the Titans.

Ptolemy III coins from Thebes hoard 246-222 B.C.

Most likely from the same hoard as the previous image.The Egyptian section is very dark and no flash photography or video is allowed so I could not get a good image.

One thing with Egyptian coins were there thickness. They look like chocolate candies, Peppermint Patties to be exact.

I recommend visiting The Met but give yourself time the place is large and most of the coins are in corners and dead spots.

I took hundreds of pictures from armors to paintings to statues to fully recreated rooms but this one was one of my favorites.


The stained-glass dome was part of Manhattan home circa 1904 and possibly made by Tiffany Studios. Something about it was just very appealing. Sure it has nothing to do with coins or currency but everyone can enjoy its simple beauty.

Coinstar FunTime Project

James over at The Copper Counter Blog dared to issue a challenge to build your own mini-Coinstar machine.

Well you don't tell an engineering student to build a model without expecting it to work. My wind turbine from last semester may have been a 1/50th scale but it still produced electricity.

It took my fake non-magnetic Tiny Buffalo but all the other coins were left in the rejection tray.

Update: To add a still of the modified print-out. I had to add a bottom, using Gimp the image manipulation software. I used the cardboard box that my 2009 proof set came in as a backing. Found out that the small tabs were not necessary but larger main tabs worked well. This is due to the thickness of my backing board.

I didn't go step by step with pictures since my camera started acting up but it is pretty straight forward.
.

Tiny

Do you have an odd coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Small change means just nickels and pennies but this piece I found on a seat at a store is something completely different. It looks like a buffalo nickel, it's metallic, and stamped 1938 but the size is way off.

A little investigation helped me find out what I really had.

Using my caliper I measured it to be 3/8 inches or 9.525 millimeters compare that to the
normal buffalo at 21.20 mm. The dateless buffalo I found, pictured above,is 21.03 mm which is slightly smaller because it is very worn.

It weighs 0.85 grams compared to a normal 5.00 gram buffalo nickel.
It is not magnetic but made of some type of metal.

Looking at the back it has old glue. A very clear and flaky glue. That confirmed my theory that it was part of some jewelry. It could not be a button because it was too small. A quick Google search of all the parameters of this fake coin I found this seller of earrings.

At $7.00 a pair you can get tiny coin earrings from all major circulating U.S. issues from tellmewhereonearth. com.

A bit odd is for $4.00 you can get the tiny coin itself, so why not buy the earrings rip off the post and have two tiny coins.

The fake coin is very well done for its size and made of a metal that is not aluminum which is not bad.

I estimate a retail value of $3.00 since I can easily scrape the rest of the glue off with out any damage. No numismatic value since this is at least art at most exonumia. Even though at bizarrefun.com they sell miniature, or as they spell it minature, coins as low as $0.50 each. They don't have any Indian heads but even at wholesale the value is still worth more than a nickel.

Do you have a weird coin and want to find out its value? Leave a comment and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

2009 is Finally Here

Do you have a quarter and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

145 days into the year and I finally get a 2009 coin. Friends and family members who just collect state and territorial quarters have found every current design including the D.C. quarter. I on the other hand haven't seen anything new since Alaska, Hawaii escapes me.

Unlike most I was in favor of adding the U.S. territories to the state quarter program but the addition of National parks for the next 11 years is just ridiculous. In 2004 Daniel Carr made the following design which I think is better than the one that is currently used. His other design were good enough to made for New York and Rhode Island.

Compare it now to the design chosen by a Puerto Rican Commission.

Nice enough but no coquí.

On the circulating coin "Isle of Enchantment" is written in Spanish "Isla del Encanto" above the Puerto Rican hibiscus, Puerto Rico's state flower. The building is the Sentry Box at San Cristobal Fort, El Morro, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

All people from Puerto Rico have been U.S. citizens since 1917 and the island became a territory in 1952. By 1998 America asked for an indefinite extension before allowing Puerto Rico to become independent or a new state.

Here's the stats...
Type/Country: 25 Cents-Puerto Rico / United States
Year: 2009P
Mintage: 53,200,000 (Estimated)
Metal: 91.67% Copper 8.33% Nickel
Value: $0.25 in F-12

I would add that the mintage is about 1/8th the normal mintage and other coins this year follow a similar low production.

Do you have a special quarter and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Museum Quality: Part 1

Do you have old coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

My lack of updates are a sign of a lack of finds. I was trying to steer all my college work to coin related items I was even going to make a coin sorter but I was out voted. So while at a recent art course in The Metropolitan Museum Of Art I took a side trip to find historical coins.

In numismatics ancient coins are not my strong point. I never got into them since they aren't found in change (normally) and the nice ones are expensive.

A collection of Visigoth coins meant to mimic Byzantine coins (images of Byzantine coins were too blurry to post) eventually they took on a style of there own.

Top to bottom, left to right...
Type/Country: Justinian & Maurice Tiberius Tremissis / Constantinople
Year: 527-602
Mintage: Unknown
Metal: Gold
Value: Hundreds(museum pieces often carry an unknown premium)

Type/Country: Imitating Valentinian Solidus / Toulouse, France
Year: 450-460
Mintage: Unknown
Metal: Gold
Value: Hundreds(museum pieces often carry an unknown premium)

Type/Country: Imitating Justinian Solidus / ?
Year: Mid-500s
Mintage: Unknown
Metal: Gold
Value: Hundreds(museum pieces often carry an unknown premium)

Type/Country: Imitating Imperial Tremissis / ?
Year: Mid-500s
Mintage: Unknown
Metal: Gold
Value: Hundreds(museum pieces often carry an unknown premium)

Type/Country: King Reccared Tremissis / Mérida, Spain
Year: 586-601
Mintage: Unknown
Metal: Gold
Value: Hundreds(museum pieces often carry an unknown premium)



Fake coins have always been all the rage especially in Egypt around 308-320. Real coins were pressed in clay then the after they dried you have these terracotta molds. Next coins were cast with molten/soften metal of equal or lower quality. Not all forgeries were intended to scam instead it was for the lack of circulating money throughout the Roman empire.


The case was full of coins but the reflection and my camera skills made shooting difficult. The coins were in a corner next to the elevator showing a complete lack of respect.


Type/Country: Augustus/Capricorn Silver Cistophorus / Ephesus (Turkey)
Year: 25 B.C.
Mintage: Unknown
Metal: Silver
Value: Hundreds(museum pieces often carry an unknown premium)

I'll show a few more at a later date and maybe do a little more research on what I saw and the museum experience altogether. I will post some more images on my other blog as soon as possible.

Do you have old coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

This is a Post

Do you have a coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

I'm still here answering questions just not posting much. Apparently getting a master (or is it masters) in engineering is proving tougher than I expected.

So I leave you with a statue I pass every once in a while.

Photo courtesy of the fine folks at http://www.newyorkology.com/archives/2008/11/mta_plans_23_pc.php

Do you have a coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Money in Art

Do you have a coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Last year at this time I went to the Smithsonian Institution: National Museum of the American Indian located at
The George Gustav Heye Center
Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House
One Bowling Green
New York, NY 10004
it is free admissions.

There were some great pieces but one that relates to the numismatic hobby was this basket.

The work is titled Penny For Your Thoughts made circa 2000.
It is modern art by Terrol Dew Johnson (Tohono O'odham, born 1975) Arizona.
Medium is beargrass, waxed nylon, and pennies.
Anonymous donation, 2005 (26/4364).

His quote on this work in 2005...

My work reflects who I am and as a person, my culture, my family, the desert. I have learned much from my elders and I combine this respect for tradition with my own visions of the world I see around me. Many times I dream a design, and it haunts me until I actually weave it.

While I may not know the value of this art piece I know it's significance.

Do you have a coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.