Counterfeit British Halfpenny and 1787 Conn. Coppa Found 2 ft. apart!!!!!!!

[hogge]

First of all I opologize for the pics. The coins actually look better than the pics show.(Damn scanner)! Both cleaned up quite well with warm water and a light brushing with a soft toothbrush. The counterfeit is a group "I" according to the "Red Book", and weighs 6.9 grams. The "dot" between the numerals and "REX" is raised to the middle along with a more rounded and larger shield. There is only a trace of the last number in the date and is either a "1" or a "7". So 1771, 1777(EXTREMELY RARE), or 1787. Kind of ruled out 1787 because of the group "I" classification. Maybe someone more familiar with these can help me. This is my 2nd Conn. Coppa and same year also. Have been in touch with someone from the Colonial Coin Collectors that may be able to help me on both coins to determine exactly what varieties they really are. Needless to say I AM PUMPED UP, and ready for tomarrows' hunt at the same spot! Almost didn't go when my bro-in-law called this morning at 8 am, but when he said " I don't want to find something at your spot and not offer you to go." Thats all it took. Even though it rained pretty hard we got in an hr. hunt. We hunted this place last yr. and completely forgot about it til the other day when I drove past where it was. So right next to the foundation in a small patch of ferns I got a "bottle cap-1c, on the Prism IV at 4" down. BINGO! I could see it had "III" on it so I knew it was a 1700's coin. After I called Rich over and I calmed down a little we had a smoke. By then it was raining pretty good and we decided to give it about 15 more mins. As he started walking away my next hit as I started swinging was a dead on 25c hit that wouldn't move. You don't get many of these hits where we hunt unless it's a coin so once again at 4'' I started to dig. "HEY....I got another coin". Over he comes...." That's @#$%*&* Awsome!" I could see it was a Conn Coppa right away. Could not believe it! Litterally 2 ft. away under a 4-5" thick log!(I had to move the log ). I have another 1787 Conn Coppa, but the Counterfeit British Half Penny makes for my oldest dug! Can't wait to see what Sunday brings! HH HOGGE

 

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[watercolor]

Re: "Machin Mills" Halfpenny and 1787 Conn. Coppa Found 2 ft. apart!!!!!!!

EXCELLENT!! You have a great spot there

Now get some sleep so you can hit that place early

Good luck tomorrow!
watercolor

 

[Roger Mn.]

Re: "Machin Mills" Halfpenny and 1787 Conn. Coppa Found 2 ft. apart!!!!!!!

Very nice finds. If there rare they could be worth lots of money in any condition.Congrats.

 

[capndan151]

Re: "Machin Mills" Halfpenny and 1787 Conn. Coppa Found 2 ft. apart!!!!!!!

That's it I'm movin to the east coast. Nothin that old in Cali.

 

[l.cutler]

Re: "Machin Mills" Halfpenny and 1787 Conn. Coppa Found 2 ft. apart!!!!!!!

Great finds, can't tell if it is a Machins or not from the pics but terrific finds either way!

 

[civilman1]

Re: "Machin Mills" Halfpenny and 1787 Conn. Coppa Found 2 ft. apart!!!!!!!

I'm slowly beginning to like these old Copper's.....Sweet dig's Hogge and best of luck with the ID

 

[TimC (North Alabama)]

Re: "Machin Mills" Halfpenny and 1787 Conn. Coppa Found 2 ft. apart!!!!!!!

Awesome finds dude!

 

[jgas]

Re: "Machin Mills" Halfpenny and 1787 Conn. Coppa Found 2 ft. apart!!!!!!!

Nice digs...I want to vacation on the east coast! jgas

 

[Don in SJ]

Re: "Machin Mills" Halfpenny and 1787 Conn. Coppa Found 2 ft. apart!!!!!!!

Congrats on the CT copper, I do not think the other coin is a Machin's Mills copper. Again, Red Book is the culprit for so many thinking they have a Machin's Mills copper. The coin does not appear to match the plates for any of the Machin's Mills coins from what I can see from your scan. The coin is more consistant with a typical British counterfeit.

I would love to see Machin's coppers being posted, but again, they are not as common as one would think and not many are found, but thousands of British counterfeits are found.

The scan does make it difficult to say what the coin is, for date and for features, you say it looks better in person, been there done that, try this and maybe the scan will be clearer for posting. Take a "Post it" or other colored piece of paper, preferably a blue or red and have that as your background with the coin. The color will be more copper like and possible more features showing up in the photograph.

I used to use a scanner for many years and ground found coppers and white background usually came out too dark, unless I played with the scan in a software enhancement program. Background color does change how a coin looks and is necessary sometimes to get a better photograph to post.

Attached is a background color demonstration photo collage I put together a few years back for a talk at our club about photographing coins. It is very evident how background color when using the same settings on a camera (or scanner) make a difference in appearance of the coin.

Don

 

[bergie]

Re: "Machin Mills" Halfpenny and 1787 Conn. Coppa Found 2 ft. apart!!!!!!!

Congrats! I live a few miles from the Machin Mills site in Newburgh, NY. There's an historical sign marking the spot.

 

[Iron Patch]

Re: "Machin Mills" Halfpenny and 1787 Conn. Coppa Found 2 ft. apart!!!!!!!

Congrats on the CT copper, I do not think the other coin is a Machin's Mills copper. Again, Red Book is the culprit for so many thinking they have a Machin's Mills copper. The coin does not appear to match the plates for any of the Machin's Mills coins from what I can see from your scan. The coin is more consistant with a typical British counterfeit.

I would love to see Machin's coppers being posted, but again, they are not as common as one would think and not many are found, but thousands of British counterfeits are found.

The scan does make it difficult to say what the coin is, for date and for features, you say it looks better in person, been there done that, try this and maybe the scan will be clearer for posting. Take a "Post it" or other colored piece of paper, preferably a blue or red and have that as your background with the coin. The color will be more copper like and possible more features showing up in the photograph.

I used to use a scanner for many years and ground found coppers and white background usually came out too dark, unless I played with the scan in a software enhancement program. Background color does change how a coin looks and is necessary sometimes to get a better photograph to post.

Attached is a background color demonstration photo collage I put together a few years back for a talk at our club about photographing coins. It is very evident how background color when using the same settings on a camera (or scanner) make a difference in appearance of the coin.

Don

Question for you Don, and is something I was going to mention before.

Do you know what other metals were used for the counterfeit georgies? I have a Geo. II that is dark and sounds much lower then what it should eventhough it is close to the same size. (That's a pretty easy first step for someone trying to determine a couterfeit, scan it and if it ani't copper it ain't regal.)

I also have a couple Canadian coins found together that are suppose to be copper but no way are they. Looking into those I also got onto another interesting topic...imitation vs Blacksmith. Very similar in most cases except for the value.

 

[Don in SJ]

Ironpatch:

Counterfeit coppers are mostly made of inferior quality copper (debased) or just a lesser amount of pure copper. Therefore the counterfeits are more susceptible to corrosion, pitting and porosity, which is very evident by the fact that most KGIII coppers are usually not in the best of shape, but yet many KGII and KGI coppers which have a higher distribution of Regals found in North America will usually be in better shape corrosion wise.

Debased copper coins were usually debased with lead/pewter/zinc/tin. I may be missing some but in general anything that was cheaper to use than pure copper.

Depending upon what metal was used the copper may be thinner, smaller in diameter and weigh less than the weight range of Regals. However, if a lot of lead was in the mixture, than the weight could be in the ballpark of a Regal, but then like you said, and most of us have noticed, that on the metal detector itself the readings for a lot of counterfeits can sound not as good in pitch, nor read as high on the scale whether numeric or analog.

I believe specific gravity is used in some cases to determine counterfeits if the air weight is similar to a Regal, but I am not very familiar with doing specific gravity tests.

Don

 

[Iron Patch]

Ironpatch:

Counterfeit coppers are mostly made of inferior quality copper (debased) or just a lesser amount of pure copper. Therefore the counterfeits are more susceptible to corrosion, pitting and porosity, which is very evident by the fact that most KGIII coppers are usually not in the best of shape, but yet many KGII and KGI coppers which have a higher distribution of Regals found in North America will usually be in better shape corrosion wise.

Debased copper coins were usually debased with lead/pewter/zinc/tin. I may be missing some but in general anything that was cheaper to use than pure copper.

Depending upon what metal was used the copper may be thinner, smaller in diameter and weigh less than the weight range of Regals. However, if a lot of lead was in the mixture, than the weight could be in the ballpark of a Regal, but then like you said, and most of us have noticed, that on the metal detector itself the readings for a lot of counterfeits can sound not as good in pitch, nor read as high on the scale whether numeric or analog.

I believe specific gravity is used in some cases to determine counterfeits if the air weight is similar to a Regal, but I am not very familiar with doing specific gravity tests.

Don

Gotcha. debasing makes sense. To give you an idea of how different the sound is for my Canadian token the regular copper one is a 28 on my Explorer digital, the suspect one is a 6. It's a ships Colonies & Commerce token, the Blacksmiths can be very collectable but not much seems to have been written about counterfeits. I may contact someone interested in this type of token just to see how many of these forgeries turn up for sale...if any. Out of the 40 or 50 my friend and I have dug I would guess only two would be other metal or debased copper.

 

[West Jersey Detecting]

Congrats on the Colonials!

Don,

I am interested in more info on using background colors. Can you send me a link? I have always tried to use the opposite colors for background. For example, when photographing coppers, I avoid reds and greens. When photographing silver, I avoid blue. I also try to use natural lighting; late day sunlight when the shadows are getting long seems best. These techniques seem to work pretty well for me. Then I make adjustments using my photo editing tools.

 

[Don in SJ]

Congrats on the Colonials!

Don,

I am interested in more info on using background colors. Can you send me a link? I have always tried to use the opposite colors for background. For example, when photographing coppers, I avoid reds and greens. When photographing silver, I avoid blue. I also try to use natural lighting; late day sunlight when the shadows are getting long seems best. These techniques seem to work pretty well for me. Then I make adjustments using my photo editing tools.

Natural light is preferred, however, a lot of people use scanners and for those using cameras, there are times that natural light will be different; depending upon time of day, time of year, clouds, sunny, etc. For standardization, artifical lighting, be it either a scanner or a desk lamp will give consistant lighting no matter when you photograph. The background colors are preferred to be used to help in showing off the coin the best for posting. Ground found coppers are usually darker, and using a white background can be tricky to get the details to show, as evidenced by many posts on this forum.
Also, angled photographing to see details often is not preferred due to exagerating the features on alignments which is needed for attritubution a lot of times.

Using a camera stand for your permanent record of coin and button finds, allows you to have standard sized photos and less playing around with software for a nice record of your finds. http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,51350.0.html

The two coins in this post I would hope would show up better with a colored background instead of the white and that was the reason for mentioning using color in the background.

Don

 

[BuckleBoy]

Excellent finds!

In terms of background color, I usually go with blue--regardless of copper or silver, it seems to work quite well. I've been experimenting with other colors for copper, but for silver--blue is here to stay.




Regards,


Buckleboy

 

[tymcmurray]

Great finds!!!
I would love to find two in one day.
Who am I kidding? I love finding one
in a day!!!

 

[Iron Patch]

Great finds!!!
I would love to find two in one day.
Who am I kidding? I love finding one
in a day!!!

One day a friend and I wandered into a field and each dug about 28 lg coppers, a friend came late and still got 16 or so. Hunts like that you never forget.

 

[Derek752]

Hogge --

Congrats bud !! Coppas are Coppas no matter what they are...GREAT COIN FINDS !! What I enjoy most is the big ID and then savoring the moment before I dig it up and the excitement that it might be that one coin thats rarer then rare.

I've found some nice rare coins over the years but its more like 1 out of 50 will be the exception. Heck my best coin ever I did'nt even dig....I spotted it while digging a button.

In 10 years I've dug 2 Fugios and only 4 Connecticut coppas and 1 Vermont and thats out of about 150 coppas , mostly Lg Cents

I'm anxious to see your next digs from the sight !

Derek

 

[Iron Patch]

Hogge --

Congrats bud !! Coppas are Coppas no matter what they are...GREAT COIN FINDS !! What I enjoy most is the big ID and then savoring the moment before I dig it up and the excitement that it might be that one coin thats rarer then rare.

I've found some nice rare coins over the years but its more like 1 out of 50 will be the exception. Heck my best coin ever I did'nt even dig....I spotted it while digging a button.

In 10 years I've dug 2 Fugios and only 4 Connecticut coppas and 1 Vermont and thats out of about 150 coppas , mostly Lg Cents

I'm anxious to see your next digs from the sight !

Derek

Yeah D my numbers are pretty high for totals but it's very true the rare finds are just that, rare. To date I have a 1722 Rosa American Two Pence, 1 Vermont & 3 CTs.