1861-0 Confederate Die Creck

zeewool,

The confederate Army captured the U.S. Mint in New Orleans in the Spring of 1861. History notes that they minted coins from on-hand planchet stock and dies. The general consensus of Seated die experts agree that the only known diagnostic of coins minted by the Confederate Army at this facility had that die crack. There may be others, but there's no way to identify them.

So in reality, this is a U.S. Seated Liberty half dollar that was struck by the Confederate Army. Ah semantics ...

That would be a "BINGO!"

I can buy the part about the mint being under the control of a Confederate government, and that more than likely, production never skipped a beat as the same mint workers simply remained on the job when North/South hostilities broke out in April. It would only make sense to use the monetary venue of your adversary as a weapon against him, especially when you have no such monetary units of your own yet.

To place a 'not earlier than' date on implementation of die usage would suggest (to me) that this particular die was strangely sent to the CSA by the USA, 'after' the normal January shipments to the branch mints. I do not understand how any group of experts can hold in consensus the notion that a die that was on hand since January was not used until after March.

I find this very hard to imagine, but I will accept it for now, because 'you' are the one who told me this, and I do respect your word Nut.

I do however, reserve the right to argue vehemently about this at any future date of my choosing.

Very interesting topic. And I no way claim to have much knowledge of this matter. But my Two Cents worth would be, because of the die crack, that I assume the die would crack after heavy use. And that would have happened in that small window of time that the CSA ran the mint after April 1st.

Here is a paragraph from a online search.

J.W. Scott and the CSA Restrikes

In early 1861, troops representing the state of Louisiana seized the federal New Orleans Mint, and on April 1 it came under control of the Confederate States of America. The staff and facilities remained intact, and the C.S.A. continued to operate the Mint for a time, using bullion and dies on hand to strike Liberty Seated half dollars and gold double eagles. Soon, the mint closed. For the rest of the decade, continuing to 1878, it was used for storage, unofficial lodging by itinerants and tramps, and generally fell into disrepair. The building was poorly constructed to begin with, and in the 1850s a massive repair / restoration helped solve structural and other problems. In 1878 the mint was refurbished, and in 1879 coinage resumed, consisting mostly of Morgan silver dollars, punctuated by lower quantities of other silver denominations and scattered gold $5, $10, and $20.

Sensible presumption GoldRush on the die crack thing. Actually, dies have molecular weaknesses at and below surface caused by the processes of their creation. Cracks can occur on first strike or first clash or they could last for tens of thousands of strikes or several clashes without developing a crack. Some dies were duds and some were winners.

Documentation of the die's issue, usage, and disposition are the only accurate means of determining such a time frame. I doubt that such records were kept, especially in New Orleans in 1861.