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Question: I
have recently become interested in colonial and early American coins and have
been researching them in various publications. In looking at pictures of the
1785 George III Immune Columbia pieces, it strikes me as unusual that the
border inscriptions on the coins are incomplete. If someone went to the trouble
of making a coin, why didn’t they make it so all the inscriptions were
complete? It seems illogical to me. –B.W.
Answer: The 1785 Immune Columbia pieces were made at
Machin’s Mills, and it was not the intention of this minting facility to turn
out coins that were “pretty” or even “numismatically desirable.” Rather, their
goal was to produce pieces that, when issued, appeared to be worn and
indistinct in certain features. The coiners wanted their product to be readily
acceptable in the channels of commerce, and worried that sharply struck pieces
with perfect detail might arouse suspicion. For them, wear on a coin was
desirable, as it implied that merchants, bankers and others had already
accepted it as genuine, and passed it from hand to hand.
While the reverse die was complete and contained the full
lettering IMMUNE COLUMBIA and the date 1785, the planchets used were of
insufficient diameter, and all specimens I have seen have been incomplete in
one area or another. As you noted, even the examples shown in reference books,
including A Guide Book of United States
Coins and in my own Whitman
Encyclopedia of Colonial and Early American Coins, all show this feature.
In summary, if there is such a thing as a perfectly struck
example, on a full width planchet, I have never seen or heard of it.
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