| Description: |
A unique, historic, and fascinating insight into a still-unknown method of die production
pioneered by famed London medallist John Harvey Pinches (1852-1941), ca. 1900,
incorporating two steel dies in the form of Morgan dollar obverses. Housed in a custom box
measuring 8 3/4" x 6 1/2" x 2 1/4" with fine dovetailing, brass hinges, and
a specially constructed wood interior with four circular niches to store its contents. Its
old paper label, typed and set into the black-velvet lined lid, reads: "DIE MAKING
EXPERIMENT BY JOHN PINCHES - 1900 / From a U.S. American silver Dollar which was machined
away on the reverse, two steel dies were hobbed [i.e. hubbed] in such a manner that little
obvious damage was done to the obverse of the coin. From the two hardened dies, one only
double headed silver coin was struck. The reproduction was so perfect that the method has
remained a family secret ever since to avoid the possibility of forgers using it."
The family was, after the Wyons, perhaps the leading family of medallists in 19th-century
Britain, from the 1840 founding of the firm by John Pinches the elder, the father of John
Harvey Pinches, who produced this experiment. |
