1863 seated dollar

I saw this on ebay and was wondering about it. I've never heard of an
aluminum proof in 1863.

http://tinyurl.com/j739d

It's not like I'm going to bid, just curious. If its on ebay it must be
real ;-)

Lowell wrote:
I saw this on ebay and was wondering about it. I've never heard of an
aluminum proof in 1863.

http://tinyurl.com/j739d

It's not like I'm going to bid, just curious. If its on ebay it must be
real ;-)

There were all kinds of pattern coins struck in off-metals in the
1800s. This looks to me like a so called "fantasy piece" where the
mint director, or some other mint official, had coins specially struck
clandestinely for himself and his favored "clients" in off-metals and
muled die combinations that should never have existed. This one fits
the bill as it is an aluminum planchet with an obverse 1863 die in the
'no motto' years paired with a 'with motto' reverse that was put into
service in 1866.

You can check out www.uspatterns.com and see all sorts of interesting
pattern coins and die trial pieces that the mint produced.

"Lowell" wrote in message
ups.com...
I saw this on ebay and was wondering about it. I've never heard of an
aluminum proof in 1863.

http://tinyurl.com/j739d

It's not like I'm going to bid, just curious. If its on ebay it must be
real ;-)

That is a pretty coin. Aluminum usually doesn't hold up well, but I guess
that coin hasn't seen much circulation.

At the time, aluminum was known but was very hard to obtain from ore, and
therefore was a precious metal. Prior to 1886, it would have been
impractical as a coinage metal because there wasn't enough of it. Thus the
aluminum dollar is a fantasy piece -- an image of what a truly wealthy
nation's coinage might look like.


IF