Hey all! Just bought this Bust Quarter for $35. It is the small letter variety, but does anyone here know the exact variety? Thanks!
More from Browning* regarding the 1831 25c : "A marked change appears in the quarter dollar of this year, the diameter is considerably reduced with a consequent increase in thickness. The change in type, however, is only affected by the size of the devices, which are reduced to conform to the size of the coin, and the omission from the reverse of the scroll bearing the motto, E PLURIBUS UNUM." * p 115, "The Early Quarter Dollars of the United States 1796 - 1838", A.W. Browning, revised edition 1992
Some factors which distinguish this die marriage from others : Obverse : In the date, upright of last "1" on right side is even with extreme left of Liberty's lowest curl Distance from upper right star to cap is the same as distance between lower right star and curl. Reverse : "25 C" small and low Small letters in legend no berries on olive branch eagle has no tongue
Sure. Hit the Heritage website and search the archives. Here ya go... http://coins.ha.com/common/search_results.php?Ne=304&Ntt=1831&Ntk=SI_Titles&N=51+790+231+313 You can narrow the search to zero in on the 7 varieties (if HA has in fact sold all 7 over the years). Might narrow the search to higher grade coins for clarity.
It is indeed B2 but I show it in the Steve Tomkins book as an R2. There are 7 varieties for this year as stated by .900.
But you still have the problem that you have to be able to attribute and confirm the varieties of the coins in Heritage's archives. Never trust the grading services, especially PCGS and NGC to attribute coins by die variety correctly (And if the services have attributed them, usually the auction house will just blindly accept their attribution.) For those that the TPG did not attribute and the auction house did, you can still find errors. In last weeks Pre-Long Beach sale at Heritage at least ten percent of the Conder token lots contained at least one misattributed coin. (It might have been higher because I only double checked the attributions on those lots that had a piece listed that I was interested in. I sent them a list of corrections and they did update the auction listings, one hour before the end of on-line bidding. Fortunately none of the lots went to a mail bidder.)
Excellent points. Thank you ! This is an important clarification, and these points are vital to keep in mind. Just as one must grade for one's self and not blindly trust the slab for grade, one must attribute for one's self. Compared to grading, attribution is a more exact science and less subjective. It's discrete; either a certain die marriage produced a coin or it didn't. Of course, wear may obscure details and make attribution more iffy, and the debate is on ! :loud: :whistle:
