Peace Dollars Help

Well, I am back. I see nobody followed up yet.
There are two HIGH RELIEF Peace dollars.
The 1921 Business circulating coin and the EXTREMELY RARE 1922 Matte Proof. I doubt highly that you have a proof.

I do have a 1921 Peace dollar. Which is always "high relief" as all 1921 and only the 1921 Peace dollars are.
There were only perhaps a dozen PROOF Peace dollar struck, a 1922 High relief which is a matte finish proof while the 1921 is struck for general circulation. There are also 3 non proof, non high relief dated 1922 1922 D and 1922 S that are all common date Peace dollars, minted for general circulation, as well as the remaining dates to 1935.

A matte proof is defined as special proofs that have a grainy "sandblasted" look on the surface. Matte proof coins were sometimes made in the early part of the 1900's. More recent proof coins have mirror-like brilliant surface and sometimes highly contrasting frosted cameo like raised design and lettering.

(I added a little to this definition I borrowed mostly from a website named mycoincollecting.com)

Below you will see a not-so-great image of it.
The high relief is not super dramatic as you might think of when you think of the new Ultra High Relief 2009 Gold double eagles.


Yet it is there. Higher rim, more detail deeper, more concave fields, and raised design. Mine was cleaned, unfortunately.



compared to low or normal relief 1935




If you even compare my two Peace dollars here, the 1921 does appear to be more 3-D while the design on the 1935 appears to sit on a flat surface. I think that is the difference for this series.
BTW, I think you meant 1921 to 1935 and not "1922-25 yrs" when you asked.
Hope this helped. Hope I am correct.

Good eye! That is a nice observation, I see just whacha mean. And on my 21 I think shes mad she got a cleaning!

I did a little more research in between mutitasking here and found that there are some 1922 high reliefs that are not proofs, but I think it was hard on the dies or minting process, so I am not 100% correct in my summary above.
Thanks for putting that into words desertgem.

here are the backs of the coins

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pic 1

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Ignore any questions about the relief, it is much easier t look for a difference in the actual design. On the obverse the easiest place to see the difference is the spike just the the right of the E in LIBERTY. On the 21 and 22 high relief and the 22 medium relief that spike just reaches the top edge of the bottom bar of the E. On the 22 - 35 low relief coins it almost reaches the middle bar of the E. This can clearly be seen from the images on Coinfacts. The first picture is a 22 high relief and the second is the low relief. The difference in the length of that spike is obvious.


On the reverse the thing to look for is the ray that passes through the right upright of the N in ONE. On the high and medium relief coins it extends up to the left ending above the center of the O. On the low relief coins it ends before it reaches the the left upright of the N. Once again the first picture is the high relief and the second in the low relief.



Once you learn to look for that short spike by the E and that long spike through the N you can recognize the high or medium relief coins at arms length and you don't need a second piece to compare it to.

Thanks Conder101 that's good to know.