This is a fun coin. @Paddy54 would love any thoughts you have on this. Most of these that I have seen have really bold clash marks on the reverse. I'm thinking this one was struck after a poor die polish job to remove the clash or was a different die used on the reverse? Wondering if it's anything special. Don't see anything about it in Breen or Blythe.
Larry I just responded to your question here...evidently I wasn't logged on...and it said that it would post when I did log on but it was lost. I have some things to do this morning but will re write my response to you later today...For the life of me I thought I was logged on...maybe got timed out IDK but will reply this afternoon. Paddy.
Ok let me try this again...First of all I love the old green PCI slab...It is one of the old slabs that I would look at if found at a show. I'm not sure what generation it from as I know that if the digits 6 and 9 that have straight tails not curved like this 6 are the oldest or first generation of PCI slabs. Next I agree 100% that the die was lapped ,and in my opinion it was done quite nicely, as the lines are in 1 direction not all over the place. To some who not know about lap lines on a coin ,might think the specimen was cleaned. I also agree that the die lapping was done right before this specimen was struck. The details of the inverted date look like the person was definitely trying to remove the artifacts as much as possible, without removing other devices or details. I am going to take an educated guess as to the number of dies used for the 1858 mintages. As the number of dies used for this year are unknown. With the mintage of 3,500,000 my guess somewhere in the low 20's of both obv. & rev. dies made ,and used in 1858. Another factor that stands out is pre civil war time period ,and the hoarding of coins. As well the security of the New Orleans mint to produce coinage. Back to your coin ,I see a specimen that to my eye is better than Au. I do not see any wear...I see loss of luster" or no luster present" due to a die with heavy polishing lines...I say its MS coin in the 61/62 range. Personally I would not crack it out ,as I like the old slab and would judge this coin as well others as to what I see as the correct grade....not what is on the slab. Talking about the heavy clashes on most h 10's as well three cent NC coins goes with the high mintages. Example of the 1865 NC three cent coins ,I've have seldom seen a specimen that isn't clashed. To the point where you can actually read the date on either side of the coin. My question is was there just 1 die with the inverted date punched,or more than 1 obv. die mis-punched? With the mints records incomplete with the numbers of dies used. What is surprising is that the New Orleans mint has better records of the dies that were used than Philadelphia mint. There's 19 years of recorded die use for New Orleans, and only 8 known for Philly. For the entire seated half dime series. Lastly your coin is very cool example of the RPD #002 inverted date 1858 half dime. When I see your specimen as well others varties on other series that have artifacts as such it drives me nuts wondering the how and why's they came to be? So many factors come to mind....as possible answers, but truth be told we will never know the truth. The one factor that is known is collector's like us sure are drawn to such items on our money. Be they done on porpose, were they done by a I don't give a damn mint worker? Or and unskilled worker,or done in haste to keep production up,and running from the pressure of your supervisor? IDK...but again it does make coin collecting interesting. Lastly I do enjoy the unknown factors as they fuel the passion within us. Sweet specimen Larry. @Idhair
@ldhair, quite a nice example. I agree with @Paddy54 that it is the RPD-002 (Breen 3091) and was die polished heavily. The other RPD of 1858 is RPD-001 (Breen 3090) which is not an inverted variety but rather punched wide north (about 50%) in normal orientation. Much rarer than the inverted RPD-001. The reverse is typical of the Type II used from 1840 to 1859 and is typified by the split buds, shown below circled from your photo. The buds on the Type Is are closed. The legend lettering is also larger on the Type IIs than on the prior Type Is.
Yes I did have a look at the buds too and forgot to mention them....the buds as well the 4 leaf on the wreath are some over looked pups.
Thank you all for the information. Gave me a better understanding of the coin. The coin was once part of the Herman Halpern collection. I bought it raw at the Bowers auction graded as MS-63 in 1995. It was a mail bid. I sent it to PCI just for the nice holder. That was in the 10 digit serial number days. I thought MS-63 was a bit much but happy with AU-58.
