Greaser!! 1888/2 Or Cud On 8 - Overlay Pics

Considering the 1882 has a type 1 obverse and the 1888 a type 2, there is no chance that it is an overdate.

It appears to be a hit on the last 8.

Hi all,
I posted yesterday a picture of an odd coin. The first pic here is the Greaser with a swan tail 8
the second and subsequent photos are overlays of an 1882.

I have read that certain dies were grease filled for reuse and that is what it looks like to me. The "swan" tail on the last eight seems to match up to the 1882. The tail is part of the 8 and not some add on.

I know that the Greaser is a type 2 and the 1882 is a type one, but this makes me question in the transition of switching types, could they have filled the dies for reuse with the new type.

Rpuckett - Not sure I understand your last question.



to the CCF!

I should clarify my last question. How do we know for sure that they did not use an old die and fill it in before making the 1888 die? when this particular coin was struck, there could have been die failure (terminal?) where part of the 2 came out. I will try to align my photos better. It completely matches. I know they reused the 1887 die, but how do you know the 1882's weren't reused to make the 1888 pattern? I have many 1888 IH's with many different date dies.
The tail on the 8 is part of the 8 and therefore I can't see how it's PMD because it is attached to it. There is no crack or ding to suggest that its PMD and it is not added material because the 8 is the same through the "swan" tail.

Have we discovered all error coins? I guarantee not because I'm sitting here with too many coins to mention that was my 103 year old grandmas collection, and I guarantee these have not been seen by human eyes for over 70+ years. At that time, many errors were not known. It's only through looking for known errors that we can come across new.

Sorry, I think you're off base here. The Type 2 differs in several ways from the Type1, not just in the position of the last feather, as explained by Rick Snow in several sources. One of these differences is the distance between the ribbon and the bottom curl. Surely they would not have filled in this tiny gap along with the numerals, and then re-cut the feathers, in a painstaking effort to update and reuse an obsolete die many years later.

With respect, your question is a good one, but the answer is simply "no way".

Rpuckett, you are also apparently missing the knowledge that the die punch used to emboss the date was separate from the die used to create the rest of the coin. Therefore again, it would be impossible (or as close to as you can get) that they would have used an old (wrong type 1 die for the coin), restruck that into a type 2, then additionally take an old 1882 die date punch, and re-engrave it to read 1888. Or found an old 1882 die lying around and restruck the die and date.

Good searching, and if it were true, this would be quite the rarity. As stated above, pick up a few of Rick Snow's books, as he goes into lengthy histories about TONS of details, even a per-year history of each coin, which uncovers wacky facts like the 1875 with reverse die dot.

Oh, and regarding magnification, I find that 60x is the sweet spot for seeing RPDs / MPDs. 30x is ok in higher grade coins, but in VF and under is sometimes not enough to attribute properly.

For IHCs, the date was added to the die by hand with a logotype punch containing the entire date. For 18th and early 19th century issues, each digit was hand punched. Date punching was phased out with the beginning of the new 20th century coin series, the date was moved to the master hub design.

I also suggest that you read Wexler's website on die varieties. It explains in detail how dies are made and how varieties occur.

http://doubleddie.com/1801.html