1859 Vanilla Mystery Die -- Would Okie Nail It?

Doug, you were correct until four days ago, but not now. E21 has been retired and is now a spare number. The "News" tab on the menu bar of my catalog shows what's going on. E21 always showed up with the die very worn (not clogged), hence several of the outer vine loops worn through. Randy recently correctly suggested that E10 and E21 might be the same die. E10 were the earlier states (Marcel's coin is a lovely example) and former E21 was the later states (the one I illustrate here). And, yes Doug, we'll add in a notation for that tiny crack at L2.

Kudos to Marcel for being the first to correctly identify the die as E10.

The point of this thread was twofold. First, it shows a deficiency in my catalog when one is trying to ID late states of E10. The worn-through Loop 2 at first glance suggests this might be a Group G, not a Group E, coin. And that can lead to big trouble. We're shortly going to put a note in the Reverse Group sorting sequence to alert people about this problem. If you look at the die file for E10, you'll find this discussed. The file actually includes full-side photos for E10 early states and late states, something we have not felt the need to do for any other reverse. And the second reason for the thread was to point out the combination of E10 and E21 into a single die (E10).

It's clear from the extent to which E10 wore that this die had a long run, pushing perhaps 100,000 pieces. It could well hold the outturn record for an 1858-59 reverse. It is tempting to speculate that we don't find more 1859 dies like this because most failed from cracking or collapsing before they received such extensive wear.

Doug,
That was my fault (OOPS) that you identified this as E21. I forgot to change one link from Leaf 2 ID photos to the E10 die page. So you found the only link left(I hope) to the page for E21. I was pretty sure when I saw your post that I had missed this one. I have corrected it now. Sorry about that.

Not many bears in the towns and cities but maybe snakes in some. We have rattle snakes and they show up in the city sometimes when its real hot you will see them on the pavement crossing the roads.
Come Fourmack to Canada

I suspect I am missing something. Granted, the photo of the E21 is of a
considerably lower grade than the photo of the E10. But I do not understand
how the gap to the vine of leaf 7 on E10 is ragged, whereas the same gap on
E21 is crisp, clean, and sharp. How can this disparity be the result of uniform
wear. Was E21 re-tooled.

The 'slips' to leaf 9 appear to differ. The angle of the initial slips appears
to differ, as do the number of and the distance transversed by the upper slips.

doug

Here is my E10---but what I want to know is it OBV8 or 8a

Thanks Phil must have missed that as my eyes go cross eyed at times

Okie, for "not liking to get down into the weeds" you seem to manage pretty well!

Hans was a unique character. He was a friend and he made a great contribution to the variety field. I really miss his sense of humor. I knew him during his days as a printer in Toronto and I spent more than a few days with him talking varieties.