How hard is it to tell symetrical designs apart ? ( like barber coins )

say you have a Barber ( or seated liberty,etc.) dime , quarter, and half....well the dime has a different reverse, of course.

So you photograph the obverse of say the Barber coins, and make them all the same size as photos. Can you tell which is which, and how ? I'm thinking there must be a tell on coins using the same obverse ?

 

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Hmm.. that's very interesting, i've never thought of that before.

 

That is interesting... I always assumed they were identical except for size (and they may well be).

 

Are you saying look at the obverse only? They all have different reverses. And if you look closely at them you can probably see some differences in the obverse for the half and quarter. Like spacing and stars, etc. Now you go back to bust halves and dollars and I believe I would need to attribute some of them possibly off the pictures. Not studied them that hard, but I am sure even they have some differences. I am assuming using nothing but photos.

 

If you manipulate the images with photoshop or other programa and make layers at about 20 or more% transparency ( experiment) you can overlay any 2 coin images and see if they are exact.

 

Nevermind.

 

I don't know about the Barbers but the obverse of each of the Seated designs are different. (The no drapery pieces may not be possible to tell apart, but the with drapery pieces can be.) The two that are hardest to tell apart are the dime and half dime. On the half dime and dime the shield is upright. On the half dime the drapery the edge of the drapery meets the leg at a steep angle of maybe 70 degrees. On the dime it meets the leg at less than a 45 degree angle.



On the 20 cent the word LIBERTY is in raised letters on the shield banner. The central figure is also smaller than on the other denominations so Liberty's head does not extend up into the circle of stars.


On the quarter, half, and dollar the shield is noticeably tipped to the left. On the quarter the drapery is similar to that seen on the dime but the rock is different and it reaches almost all the way down to the baseline of the ground.


On the half dollar the drapery is much smaller basically just reaching Liberty's elbow, the stars now point outward toward the denticals (on the others the stars point at each other) and the vertical stripes in the shield are now in groups of three instead of two. The rock joins the ground at the left edge very differently than on the other denominations where the left edge from the arm to the ground is a fairly smooth curve.


On the dollar the drapery is larger than the half but no where near as voluminous as on the dime or quarter. The rock is larger now and there is almost no ground below it. The stars again point outward. There are three groups of vertical stripes above the banner instead of two.

 

I thought I made it clear that I was talking about looking at the obverse and not having any size reference.

Good stuff on the SL type. The 20 cent coin is easy to distinguish.

 

My bad on the dime, but the Barber quarter and Half are awfully close. I'd bet most dealers couldn't tell them apart if you gave them say 8X 10 " obverse photos of each coin and asked them to identify which is which and did not allow them to look at any coins from their inventory to study for differences.

I'm not so sure most professional graders would even be able to identify that difference.