VOCABULARY TERM: OBSESSIVE DATE

Obsessive Date. Retaining a previous year's date on coins struck into the following year or years. The word obsessive, meaning the continuation of some design element, perhaps after it is necessary; this is equal to the British term immobilized (as retaining monarch's portrait after his death, say). Obsessive dating occurred in American Colonial coinage with the Massachusetts silver coins, which bore the date 1652, continued to be struck for thirty years thereafter. In Great Britain, the 1925 gold sovereign was struck by the Royal Mint from 1926 to 1949 as another example. The Maria Theresa Thaler, struck well into the 21st century, has borne the 1780 date for over 200 years.

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