Here I am to weigh in (finally). It took Don to point out to me that this thread was on the forum. I've been very busy the last few weeks seeing to my retirement details and making a fast trip to New York.
Now to the new discovery. Yes, the obverse is Obv. 37, yes the reverse die is in the E group and yes, it has repunching of the O of ONE similar to that seen on E23a. So, yes to 37 + E23a? No. There are some wee problems:
1. On the face of it, it seemed unlikely to me that the new reverse die coupled with Obv. 37 could be E23a, as E23a is in the middle (not the end) of a series of reverses with Obv. 21.
2. It has already been noted that the detail of the last half of Stem 9 and the slip up onto Leaf 9 really seems to be different on the two reverses.
3. A comparison of the position of the 9 in the date (by overlaying of date photos) shows a clear difference between the two reverses.
In short, E23a and the die in the new combination with Obv. 37 are not the same. I'll have to do a little more checking, but my strong suspicion at this point is that this piece represents a new die pair with a previously unlisted reverse. If that is true, we have some interesting numbering implications. That issue, however, I'll reserve for a separate thread I'll start. It deals specifically with the numbering for my 1859 catalog.
Edited by JHax
08/05/2015 9:56 pm
First Page
Posted 08/05/2015 6:14 pm
