Oh, DASH it all!

For those of you who are new to collecting Morgan dollars, you may have seen an early 1880's Morgan with a "dash" under the third digit of the date, but did you know that these marks were put there intentionally by a Mint employee?

When the transition was made from 1879 to 1880, the last two digits on the master hub were ground away and a 4-digit logotype was used to punch in the date on the working dies. The first two digits were used as a guide for positioning the last two digits. Not only did this result in a lot of doubled dies for 1880, but it also deepened the first two digits resulting in an uneven height of the digits on the struck coins.

To eliminate this difficulty, a 2-digit logotype was used to add the last two digits into the working dies in some cases. From 1881 to 1883, the first two digits, "18", were on the working hubs and the last two digits were punched into the working die using either a four- ot two-digit logotype or a single digit punch. The bottom of the third digit, "8", was centered over the 10th denticle from the neck vee.

Because of the broad round bottom of the "8", a short dash was often marked on the die just above the 10th denticle as an index mark to position the second "8" in the date. This resulted in the so-called "dash dates". These were formerly thought to be the result of a faulty logotype used to punch in the date digits, but the dashes always varied in lateral and vertical positions with respect to the bottom of the second "8", yet they were always centered above the 10th denticle. Basining probably removed many of these shallow marks from many of the working dies, and the dash index mark was abandoned after 1886.

Source: Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of Morgan and Peace Dollars, Fourth Edition by Leroy C. Van Allen & A. George Mallis.

By the way, if anyone is curious about the depth of the digits, if you have an 1881CC-1883CC, take a close look viewing as close to horizontal to the field of the coin as you can. You can clearly see that the "18" is higher than the 3rd & 4th digits.

Chris

 

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Interesting

 

I agree with Hunt, Chris. This is an interesting bit of information -- it would be even better with photos!

 

I'd love to be able to oblige you, unfortunately this new system is really wreaking havoc on my photos. I just took new photos of the dash on my 1883-CC, and when I tried to upload them, I got the............................

Big Question Mark Thingy!

 

Chris,
I am right there with you. Sorry I asked for photos! I just wrote two more threads and tried to upload photos without success -- the new system will take me some time getting used to it.

 

No need to apologize! Check out my thread in "Support and Feedback".


http://www.cointalk.com/t117183/

 

Let's see! I'll try to upload a photo which, earlier, resulted in the Question Mark Thingy. let's see what happens.

Nope! I'm still getting the question mark, but the photo is less than 100kb.

Chris

 

Okay, here goes nothing!

 

I see that you can access the photo from the link, but why won't it post?

 

I appreciate your help just the same.

Thanks!

Chris

 

Awesome information, thanks for all of your help Chris.

 

Unfortunately my 1883 CC is in a slab so I can't see the raised 18

 

Mine are in NGC, PCGS and GSA holders. I think the worst one for viewing the height of the numbers is probably the NGC slab, and it is more easily viewed in a GSA or PCGS holder.

Chris