1832 50c Capped Bust Half Dollar #3 - Overton 113A

In hand pics might reveal more, I'm at AU58-MS62. Priced high at AU, did well in MS.

It's an O-113a. Pictures could be hiding some rub, I'll say AU-58.

Thats not a bad deal if it comes back MS, capped busts are pricey :)

I could see an ms grade.

AU-58

What you refer to as scratch-like marks are called mint strike metal flow lines. If the die surfaces are better polished, like in the case of later 19th century Morgan dollars, the flow lines are finer and harder to see, but create the ridges that that produce the cartwheel luster in silver dollars. In the early 19th century, mint dies were not as finely polished and the die alloy was not as hard thus earlier dies created more prominent flow lines. Flow lines, like the ridges that cause luster to appear in Morgan dollars, are indications of an uncirculated coin. These mint flow lines, which are coarse ridges caused by metal moving under the pressure of the strike, rub away rapidly as the coin is handled in circulation.

For more info, see here: https://www.coinbooks.org/v21/esylu...1n32a16.html

Thanks for the explanation.
And why do some of the stars seem to be trunked to the edge of the coin?

The Overton-113a variety with the (a) designation indicates that this is a late die state of the 113 die pair. As such, when bust half dollar dies became worn, in general they tended to create a strike impression on the coin that exhibited an elongation of the stars toward the edge or rim. The distance between the stars and the rim as well as the distance between the stars and lettering is small, and proportionally smaller in larger coins. These small areas between voids in the die surface were prone to not holding their shape or outright cracking or breaking off, especially when die alloys were not as hard and durable after many thousands of impressions.

The mint was forced to create harder and more durable dies in the middle of the 19th century right before the Civil War when harder copper-nickel coins were introduced that wore and broke existing dies very quickly. The advances made then out of necessity benefited softer gold and silver striking and production from that point forward.

Also dies were much more expensive before the industrial revolution, so the Mint tried to use failing and failed dies long beyond their useful life. Elongated stars are characteristic of early bust coinage in particular, although other series and denominations show this, usually less prominently.