When I bought this coin in the late 1970s, I called it "the finest Fine-12 on the planet." If you have ever shopped for a lower grade example of the early
Half Dimes, you have experienced a lot of frustration if you were looking for a coin that is "perfect for the grade." Once these tiny coins saw some circulation, most of them were really beat up in addition to the expected level of wear. Bent, holed, badly scratched and generally mutilated are the usual conditions for these pieces. This one remarkably is "perfect."
NGC graded this one VF-20. From the market grading perspective, that is accurate. Given the usual problems these coins have, this one deserves a push in price over the usual piece that lands in a Fine condition holder.
Take a look at the date. Once more the first three digits were punched in, and the last "7" was added later. That "7" is really too large for the coin.
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That is a lot of stars, were some of them double punched in the die?
I think what you are noticing are hash marks that the die sinker scratched on the die face before he punched in the stars. This is more obvious on the 1797, 16 star dime. I once owned one of those illusive coins, and when I used a 10X glass on it, I saw that it marks under every star, which indicated that the die sinker, perhaps
Robert Scot himself, had made the marks to make sure that he could get all of the stars into the design.
You are right. That is a lot of stars, and after this die was made, the mint cut back, usually to 13 stars, in honor of the first 13 states. The number varied from time to time. There is an 1828
Half Cent with only 12 stars, which was a blunder, but 13 was the usual number. Still a few cent varieties have 15. Go figure.
Posted 04/02/2016 09:37 am
