What Should it look like?
by Bill Snyder
Sometimes it is hard to figure out just what did happen to a mis-struck coin. This is particularly true if you are unfamiliar with the particular coin type. There are a great many coin types that I am not familar with. Examples, in my case, are Persian, Oriental, and Byzantine coins.
When I get an unusual piece, I try to buy a "normal" coin of the type to compare it with.
This is an 1863 U.S. Storecard token of a merchant named Christoph Karl (New York). I could see that it was a rotated Double Strike but, as usual, the second strike had obscured part of the design. I didn't really know what Mr. Karl's storecard was supposed to look like. I went looking for a normal example.
Here you see the Reverse of the DoubleStruck storecard (on the left) next to the Reverse of a correctly struck example. (The Obverses are shown below).
I suggest that you get a matching "normal" coin to go with each of your favorite errors. The ordinary types will not cost nearly as much and the pair will make a nice display.