Was looking for varieties on a 1852-P seated dime VF35 from PCGS. The "52" in date has some nice doubling. But on the reverse I saw something weird on the "E" of ON(E). I attached a picture best I could do today. Has anyone ever seen an E like that? Could it be a chunk of "E" metal from another coin that got stuck into the die, or could it be a die pattern where whoever was working on the die made a hand slip on the E? The end of the middle horizontal, isn't terminated normally, so instead of being straight on the end, the lower part of horizontal is rounded past the normal ending and it keeps going making almost a symmetric oblong shape as it follows the same curve around the end of the middle horizontal of E. There are no visible die cracks or cuds on the reverse, which would be the expected given that the "52" is doubled on the obverse. A lively little dime overall.
Not a pattern, a pattern is a test strike of a certain design, kind of material, etc. The photos are a little blurry but it looks like the "E" took a hit to me.
Yeah I guess I mean "variety" not pattern. When you say "E" took a hit what do you mean? Yeah the photo is terrible, grainy from so much sharpness filtering. I just tried again but couldn't get much better.
I mean that something banged up against the "E" causing some of the metal to move. Hard to tell because of the photos but it could be a small die crack.
OK updated original post with a better photo, probably as good as its going to get with my cheapo camera setup. You can more easily see the curve continuing past the normal horizontal terminus, in the lower portion especially then its gets kind of crushed in the middle and then the upper portion of terminus is looking more like normal. In that "crushed" looking metal area there is a small crack visible in my 60x loop.
Better photo for sure, I am now pretty sure that it is just a mark from something banging against the "E" now.
Thanks. Yeah I guess that makes the most sense, that the metal moved or got interfered with in some way, causing a mirror image of that area to get impressed just to the right of it. I love all the SLD mistakes and varieties. I couldn't even match this dime to a known variety, because if the obverse has "52" doubling then the reverse should have some die cracks or rim cuds, and it doesn't.
