Jack says HAPPY HALLOWEEN from NIEU
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Freak Show 1968 - VIII
Well Halloween is closing in with just one full week of October left. As for me I am enjoying one of those fall like days with clear skies and a nice breeze blowing in through the office window while working on my post as my little Chihuahua lazily snores in the blanket in the adjacent room doing his best to stay warm. My freak today is hardly freakish and despite being different from those he was struck with he must have spent some time out in the world doing his best as a member of commerce. With him being found under sized and underweight I doubt he ever enter a coin operated mechanism like the pin ball games that use to be stationed at the vestibule at the local Kmart, also gone from the landscape. I do suspect at least for a time he went from change drawer to coin purse to pocket and back again during his working career unnoticed and unloved. I imagine that when he first was notice it was the lack of having a copper edge that generated the initial excitement. I know I get excited when I see that silver reeding without a copper edge on coins in my pocket change. This exciting event is getting to be a pretty rare these days. My last such find was the change I scooped out of a Coinstar reject bin that had been left behind in a little Northern California town while on vacation. It was a quarter as well, oops sorry about that the wind through the window blew me off course so back to my little friend here.
Freak Show 1968 - VII
Well today's freak seems to have had some bites taking out of him. No worries, despite a slightly mottled appearance, I do not see any zombie tendencies in this member. Still I do hear some rattling when I slip him back in the storage case with the rest of the troop, then again I heard rattles prior to his arrival so I suspect he is safe. As you might suspect he is a little lighter that the millions of his brethren that carry Kennedy’s likeness and presidential seal. These bites did not occur after striking, but before. See the planchet used for this piece arrived at the press deformed having been punched from a sheet that had been already punched. Just think of the sheet looking like Swiss cheese, though these holes were not formed from gas but previous punches. Then the punch that made our friend here was created between the gaps, though not quite. As you see there were at least two other punched holes, voids, trapped in this punch. Once punched the future error was assured so long as it was not discovered before arriving at the press for striking.
Freak Show 1968 - VI
Sorry a little late this week but I have to say I am enjoying our first fall like days.
Freak Show 1968 - V
Hello again and welcome to October, this week I bring one of the foreign members of my cast of Freaks out for your viewing. This one comes to you from across the Atlantic and at the time of its creation it was a nation torn in two by the world’s two super powers. Yes it is from West Germany which was only a mere twenty years old at the time this piece was issued. This one more specifically is from Munich, which is denoted by the ‘D’ found at the top between the stylized wheatears. Can you guess the classification using the PDS system? If you said ‘S’ you either have been following along for the past few weeks or you are just a good guesser as you had a 33.33% chance of getting the right answer. Of course who am I kidding you probably already knew the answer even before the question was asked if you like these Freaks like I do.
Freak Show 1968 - IV
I am happy to say fall is officially here, well at least in spirit.
Freak Show 1968 - III
Hello again it has been a busy week for me, how about you?
Freak Show 1968 - II
This week I have for you a new freak, well actually two. When thinking of the collect ability of errors I remembered my first error of a sort. This error was won in a marble game while I was attending Berkley Manor Elementary School on Camp Lejeune. No this was not a coin held for the winner of the game it was a single cat’s-eye marble that was actually two machine ground together. I lost quite a few marbles before I got this prize and these many years later I still have it, granted I have my other marbles too despite those that may at times feel I have lost mine. Jokes on them they are located here on my desk in two glass jars. These coin curiosities I collect I believe like my freakish marble are put aside because of their deformity. I am sure there is a coin out there that would fit nicely with my cast of freaks squirrelled away in the back of someone’s dresser awaiting rediscovery much like my misshapen marble.
Freak Show 1968
As we begin to enter what I myself call the ‘Ber’ months my mind drifts to thoughts of the macabre. I enjoy seeing jack-o-lanterns staring back at me from the store shelves along with skeletons, witches, black cats and ghost traditional element seen during the October celebration of Halloween. Of course that does not mean I roam the streets in gothic attire the remainder of the year, I just have fond memories of trick-o-treat of years past. I remember well my plastic Casper mask and suit that came in that classic cardboard box probably purchased at the local PX or Kmart. That said my collecting has begun to move into the macabre with coin oddities now dominating my collection. Each one of these little freaks is unique, yes I know like everyone else, so stand apart from the millions of their brethren who did their part in everyday commerce. Obviously these curiosities caught the attention of others who saved them from the everyday wear and tear so that collectors such as myself could appreciate them.