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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Conder101, post: 2688753, member: 66&quot;]In the early years of the US Mint when dies were retired they were not defaced/destroyed and simply sold off as scrap metal.&nbsp; Being high quality steel they were typically bought and used to make other things so few dies from back then have survived to today.&nbsp; But they seem to have been more available in the mid 19th century.&nbsp; (Joseph Mickley bought a bunch of these old dies back in 1816, when his estate was auctioned the government eventually bought the dies back after first trying to confiscate them.)&nbsp; Sometime probably around 1860 someone acquired the 1803 S-261 obv die and a reverse die from an 1820 N-12 large cent.&nbsp; They altered the obv die from a 3 to a 4 and then used the dies to create 1804 &quot;restrikes&quot;.&nbsp; The first public sales record for the restrikes was in 1868.&nbsp; The restikes are collectable today and are not cheap.&nbsp; They were struck in at least two batches.&nbsp; The obv was heavily rusted and after a modest number of coins the obv was ground or polished&nbsp; removing some of the rust and some of the central obv detail.&nbsp; The restrikes were made of copper but at least two were struck in tin after the grinding of the obv die.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://websitepicturesonly.coinauctionshelp.com/New_US_COIN_IMAGES/LargeCents/1804restrike.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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