SILVERFINGER

Truly some beautiful items on here today, artistic, historic and unique.

At least they aint pewter

I think, check this site out I use, let us know what you think. http://www.silvercollection.it/DICTIONARYEUHALLMARKSPAIN.HTML

Its a spanish silver hallmark

Ahh I thought a military medal DOH, sorry, I am afraid I cannot help you there

This is my latest pickup a 1942 dated 'Mercury headed' Dime (or 10 Cents), made from .900 silver by the Philadelphia mint. This coin design was brought out in 1916 replacing the previous 'Barber Dime' coin, it was manufactured unchanged until 1945 when it was replaced by the Roosevelt Dime design. The first thing that shocked me when I was first looking at wartime versions of these coins was the fascine on the reverse, this was Italy's dictatorships emblem used by Mussolini, and where they got the word 'fascist' from, it was only when I realised that the design was used on the US coin long before he used it and not the other way around. The front featured what looked like the Greece god Mercury, but I think it was Liberty wearing a winged cap with it meaning freedom of thought. Many millions of these were made for nearly three decades, different mints, errors and weakness of the strike from worn dies effecting the value as well as condition, apart from whether or not a coin has all its original mint lustre one way to check the wear on these coins is if you can see the separate little bands holding the fascine's together, if the top and bottom ones look one piece (instead of two) then the coin is probably worn, the centre one can also wear down BUT, a coin like mine that has all its mint lustre probably was made from a worn die making the centre band look like a one piece. The coins were made by three mints, one had no mint mark the others had letters denoting theirs, this could be found bottom left of the fascine. Philadelphia, no mark Denver, a D San Francisco, an S My coin had a mintage of a colossal 205,432,329 million minted in 1942 alone, by just the Philadelphia mint, so they are common but also not as easy to find in AU/UNC condition possibly due to the soft high silver content in them and long time in service, which to this day are still legal tender in the USA.

It might not be a hallmark but be a factory stamp of the company that made them, what medal is it ?

Reminds me of one of the 'Weeping Angels' out of Dr Who

Good to see you back matey, I missed your posts on here.

A wedge tailed swan ?

And why has the wedge tailed eagle got a flamingo on the slab, is that correct ??

The USA Jefferson nickel (5 Cents) replaced the earlier 'Buffalo' design in 1938, and featured the third US president Thomas Jefferson, all of the coins were made from copper-nickel until 1942 when the USA needed nickel for its war industry, the nickel content was replaced by .350 silver and manganese, it was found this combination did not effect their use in the various slot machines, some mints carried on with the copper-nickel 'recipe' through the war. The silver coins can be distinguished from the copper-nickel ones by having the mint mark of the state that made them above the Whitehouse, if it does not have a letter there it isn't silver, mine is a P for Philadelphia US mint, D for Denver and S for San Francisco were others making them. Production of the silver content coins ended in 1945 at the end of the war. A monster 271,165,000 of my coin were minted by Philadelphia in 1943 alone, the highest production year and total of all the mints for the 'war nickels' as they were known. Shame the photo does not show all the mint lustre on this one.

That bit alone is usually enough to set alarm bells ringing 😁 It could be a euphemism for burgled

Booker Fiction prize for them, or the Amazing Bullshitting Men award

Well if you ONLY going to have three coins they might as well be superb, historic, interesting and beautiful ones.