I recently resurrected my old
Seated dime collection, and I've been researching some of the varieties therein. One of the most prized varieties is the so-called "no arrows" 1874 dime (designated Fortin-106 and Greer-102). Actually, the arrows on this variety are very faint; it appears the dies were polished enough -- or the die filled enough -- that the arrows are barely visible. This variety is believed by
Seated dime specialists to be at least R7.
Well, fast forward to last night's Teletrade auction. I saw a peculiar 1874 dime, one I'd never seen before and one not listed as a variety -- an 1874 dime with one bold arrow and one almost invisible arrow.
Intrigued, I compared the position of the date and the arrows to a plate coin of the F-106/G-102 variety. To my surprise, the match appeared to be exact -- except for the bold left arrow, this coin's date and arrow positions, as well as the areas of the date that are bold and weak, appear to be identical to the 'no arrow' variety of 1874 dime! Keeping the discovery to myself until the auction ended, I was able to cherrypick this one.
What does this finding imply? I'm not sure yet. I've shown the picture to specialists and there seems to be agreement that this coin appears to have been struck from the same die and that no other listed variety, apart from the very rare F-106 variety, used this obverse die. So was the left arrow originally strong and then polished away (or filled by grease and junk)? Or was the left arrow repunched later, after a few true F-106 coins were produced? How many of this "one arrow" variety actually exist, and indeed, is this truly a new variety or just a different die state of F-106?
This is something that I'll be investigating and discussing with series specialists in the weeks to come, I'm sure. This may be the most exciting "find" I've ever made...so far. Here's the coin; note that on a traditional F-106, the left arrow is also nearly invisible, but the coin is otherwise seemingly identical to it:
Posted 12/16/2005 1:30 pm
