Posted 01/20/2017 08:26 am
Back in the "olden days" dies were made from a generic hub without mintmarks. I believe all of them were made at Philadelphia. These were then sent to each mint for use. When the dies arrived at Denver and San Francisco someone there would use a punch to apply the appropriate mintmark. Over time these punches would begin to wear or would break and then be replaced. These replacements would have different styles of letters on them, they were all made by hand basically so it was up to the person making the punch to determine the style of letter used. Sometimes the individual mint would decide to use a larger letter but most of the time there were variations in the letter styling. Sometimes the Denver and San Francisco mints would exchange dies and the new mintmark would be punched over the old one.
These are all varieties of the coins we love so much. Nickel collectors really get into this sort of thing, and I suppose collectors of other denominations do the same thing. Sometimes these are referred to as die pairings and the really hardcore collectors can tell you which is which, there are also websites for this. This is really cool that you noticed this, most of us mere mortals would never pick up on it.
These are all varieties of the coins we love so much. Nickel collectors really get into this sort of thing, and I suppose collectors of other denominations do the same thing. Sometimes these are referred to as die pairings and the really hardcore collectors can tell you which is which, there are also websites for this. This is really cool that you noticed this, most of us mere mortals would never pick up on it.
