Written by the Treasure Guide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| Lincoln Memorial at Night. Actually the Reverse of a Memorial Cent. |
The photo above is a close-up view of the reverse of a plain Memorial cent, which I made using my microscope. The lighting was decreased for some reason. There is something in the photo that reveals what I was trying to capture. There is a diagonal bar between the first and second column on the right. It is something you normally wouldn't notice without good magnification. It looks like a feeder arm or feeder finger mark, which is a common minor mint error worth just passing notice.
Feeder arm marks are small abrasion or scrape marks on a coin’s surface caused when the coin press’s feeder finger (a metal arm that clears a struck coin and positions the next planchet) accidentally rubs against the anvil die during production.
I just thought this photo was interesting, and it illustrates the interesting, detailed views you can capture with magnification. Good results can be obtained by experimenting with the lighting. Common coins can become very interesting as you note some of the finer detail.
Here is another close-up of the reverse of a memorial cent. This one uses normal lighting.
This one seems to me to show a figure-ground reversal. You might not see it that way, but to me it looks like the a reversal of the columns and spaces in between. The spaces in between columns look like they are in the foreground rather than the columns. Some photos will do that.
Some Memorial cents show double-die errors on the columns. Some books on error coins will tell you which years to check for such errors. I've never caught any of those.
Below is another example of what you can see with higher magnification. Guess what it is.
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| Closeup View of Cleaned Four Reale Cob. |
This closeup view shows a few things. One is that the coin has been cleaned and rubbed. The high areas are smooth, and in some views actually show the direction of the small abrasions caused by rubbing with a cleanser. In this case, it was actually baking soda commonly used at the end of cleaning silver cobs. You can clearly see the higher spots being much brighter and smoother than the low spots. To the eye, the contrast causes the deign details to stand out. While most people accept the necessity of cleaning blackened encrusted silver reales, this also shows why valuable high grade collector coins should NOT be cleaned. You can see the effect of the cleaning process and grading services will mark the coins as "cleaned," and lowers the coins grade.
Below is the four-reale that produced the picture shown above. This is how it looked when found.
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| Four Reale Found at Treasure Coast Shipwreck Beach |
It was found by an Equinox metal detector, although nearly any decent metal detector would have found it.
The area of the coin magnified in the other photo is near the top right center of this view. See if you can find it.
A good coin microscope opens up a world of interesting observations.
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In a previous post I showed this mystery mark on a piece of found porcelain and wondered about it.
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| Unidentified Ceramics Mark. |
I saw your post and since those Chinese markings drive me nuts too of course I had to look it up...lol. I'm guessing you want more depth than this but;
This stamp is from a late 20th century factory made item and the basic translation is Made in China. It is not handmade or hand painted because the square border around the marks indicate it was stamped. There are many traditional Chinese seal script characters that are not used in modern Chinese writings. It does not have a date or manufacturer.
The four characters are read from top right to bottom left The marks are translated as "Zhonggou Zhizao" the transliteral equivalent would be "China" and "Manufacture or Made", respectively.
Here is an example from another piece with a clear stamp. Note the partial English below it. Another clue as to age...;
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| Chinese Porcelain Mark. Submitted by Russ. |
Thanks much Russ.
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Friday morning Jupiter web cam view.
The seaweed is heavy down there too.
Some places they have beach cleaning machines that would pick that up along with an occasional watch or chain or whatever.
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| Surf Chart from Surfguru.com. |
No matter where you go to a Treasure Coast beach this weekend, you'll probably see a lot of renourishment sand and a lot of seaweed.
Good hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net