Specimen Dies Used In Production - 1949 50c

This. Is. Awesome.

Have you though about writing this up for the CN Journal or anything?

I think that a CNJ article would be very important and valid these days, using markers to prove that specimen dies just weren't used for special coins. Every year we have 20-30 threads asking whetther their coin is a circulated specimen coin or if they have a proof, prooflike, specimen or MS coin. You photography is outstanding.

I will consider writing something up then. I don't know what's already known or published on this topic. I'll look back through my Charlton books and see what they say (I have the two with the dollar and half dollar sections). I suppose putting all three coins (1949 50c, 1947 ML $1, 1948 50c) in one article makes sense. @okiecoiner the images are zooms from Heritage's excellent photos. They have given more or less blanket permission to do that for other articles I've written, so I don't think there's a problem with that, but I'll check before submitting to a different publication.

The 1948 50c obverse is the most interesting to me, since the specimen die is designated Convex. I've been wondering whether that means the circulation strikes were also convex. There was only one obverse die used, supposedly, which means they were all made from that specimen die. (I'll have to double check that). I don't know how to explain that only one obverse die is listed, and yet the specimens were both Convex and Concave. I should ask Paul G (can't recall his handle on here but I have his email). My 1947 ML 50c CR specimen is definitely concave on the obverse, convex on the reverse (visually it's obvious) which are not designated as such, perhaps because they all are. That's a separate topic but sort of related.

I have an early version of Paul's unpublished (still?) work on the George VI 50 cents. There is an excellent section on the refurbishment of punches (hubs) and dies, but he doesn't go into specimen coins. I sent him an email. Charlton doesn't say anything about specimen dies being reused, that I can find.

On the 1948 question, mint records say 1 obverse and 1 reverse die, but there are definitely two reverse dies (narrow and wide date), so the RCM info here is probably wrong for the obverse as well.

A statistically perplexing thing is that Heritage pulls up 80 results for 1949 50c. 9 are missing photos and half a dozen more are false results, leaving about 65 coins to examine. 5 out of 65 of these are MS coins having the specimen die pair (a sixth example is the same coin sold twice). Yet 46 obverse and 40 reverse dies were used, so you'd expect only one or two of the ~65 sold coins to be from a specific die pair, and yet there are 5 of them. I don't have a good explanation for that, but it's lucky for me to have had so many examples to look at. The hoof in 9 variety is over-represented as well.

@thedollarman Interesting. I considered that value probably plays a role in the representation of the die pair on Heritage, but not why. I'm not familiar with the Lafortune collection but perhaps that explains it. The example that sold twice is in an ICCS holder and the other four are PCGS. Perhaps they all started out at ICCS and got moved into PCGS slabs over time. I suppose you'd expect that early circulation strikes from a reused specimen die would be higher quality strikes than the rest. This seems to be the case with my 1948 50c, obverse also from a specimen die, although only MS63.

Definitely the same die pair. I see your anomaly at the flag. I looked through all the SP and MS images I had saved off when doing this thread, and none of them have it. Perhaps it's something to do with that particular strike?

I have seen your coin in person..it is a very nice representative for the grade.

The waviness you see is due to lacquer, not the die.