Believe it or not, I miss US coins a little. So I went through and took a few scans to share here. I got this 1861 O half at a flea market about a little more than a year ago for $50. Its looks like it has an old cleaning (which I was aware of) and some *very* light grafitti in the right field, reading " M K". I didn't notice that for about a month! I figure if I want, I could wear it off by hand. But I don't mind a few scratches of history. Of course, 1861 was the year that Louisiana and the New Orleans mint joined the Confederate States of America. Although it doesn't bear the diagnostic die-crack for US halves minted under the Confederacy, I recall reading that there was still a 70% chance that it was minted under either the Confederacy or the sovereign State of Louisiana. Very fun.
It's hard to tell from the pictures but I think it is die pairing 3-D. This would be variety W-06 (Included as part of WB-101 in the Wiley-Bugert book which only identified four varieties, three for the CSA and one for everything else.) The W-06 was coined by the State of Louisiana sometime in Feb or March of 1861. They make up about 6% of the total mintage of 1861-O half dollars or around 130,000 coins.
Thank you very much! If I may ask, though - how was the chronology established? (if it would be easier to scan and email me a page from the book, that'd be ideal!) Also, thanks for the comments everyone! And don't worry Treashunt, I like the initials myself.
I'd actually like to get a 61-o for my 7070 for the history factor and am quite interested in the chronology. Is it easily available condor?
The information comes from The Gobrechet Journal Numbers 94 and 97 from two articles written by Randall Wiley. Unfortunately they are not readily available at the moment and probably won't be until Collective volume seven of the Journal comes out. (And since we have been waiting seven years for volume five 1995 to 2000, I have no idea how long it will be before we see seven.)
