What's the difference between a prototype and a pattern?

I'm in Breen's "Encyclopedia of US & Colonial Coins" looking at the 1864 "small motto" 2-Cent piece, Breen lists it as a prototype. How is that different from a pattern? Or is it just Breen's own goofy nomenclature for the early more rare example of the issue?

 

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The difference might be because although the 64 small motto used a pattern die, it was released for use in commerce. Kind of like the Cheerios dollars. The reverse was a proposed or pattern die, but the coin was released and is normally referred to as having a prototype reverse design.

 

The 1863 two cent piece is a pattern

 

Thanks to all who replied, very helpful.

 

When does a prototype become a pattern and vice versa? I view patterns as unadopted designs, whereas prototypes are more of a developmental stage of a design that is a work in progress to adoption.

 

That makes sense to me in the normal English language usage of the two terms. I do not know if there is a special numismatic definition of prototype.

Breen is full of good stuff, though he was known to kind of make up facts on the fly.

 

I own different coins that are bonafide patterns, ie some of the Judd pieces, and others that were apparently developmental pieces created to perfect the design. One of my favourites is a prototype Rosa Americana penny created in 1723.

Having known Walter Breen, I rather prefer to disregard a lot of what he said, thought and acted. He was a brilliant person in knowledge, but a miserable existence otherwise.

 

I have heard the same from others who knew the man. I had a chance to acquire a handwritten manuscript of his. Normally I would have jumped at such a chance, but it was from his time he was in jail, and I just didn't want any part of that.

 

Someone in the coin club I was a member of had ridden to Los Angeles with Walter Breen and said he probably hadn't bathed since the Eisenhower years.

 

But when was that? I met Walter in 1985 and on several other occasions after that time and he had no hygiene issues then.

 

:goes off to Google Walter Breen:



I was a great fan of Marion Zimmer Bradley in the 1980s. To find that she was married to one of the most-cited authorities in my current hobby, and then to learn all this other... stuff...

I think I'll go sit and rock in a corner for a while.