1883 Shield 5 Cent

I agree it's not the die. But sometimes there is an issue with something on the die during the striking of the coin like polish which has not been remove. That is what I call a strike issue as opposed to a die issue. While these occur at the Mint, they are not related to the die, only the coining. I just don't see a dig into the surface and the field luster extends into the void.

But people can have differing opinions.

 

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Every shield nickel IS a die variety. Just like every large cent is a die variety and every Morgan dollar is a VAM. The question is to identify which variety it is.

 

Here we go again...errors or mistakes are not a die variety in my book, and, die varieties are not errors. These both occur in different phases of production, one occurs during hub production, and the other during striking process. As mentioned before, this 1883 has visible damage or errors which were caused by an obv. die in it,s later deterioration, and a little ware and tare from circulation. It too is a die variety (all dies have certain characteristics of their own) but are minor and usually only visible under magnification, and not significant.

 

Errors and mistakes come in at every point from the making of the hub to the transference of the hub to the individual dies to the striking of the coin to post mint handling.

Die varieties are simply the limitation of variation in the dies. If there is more than one hub used for a particular year, then it is grouped together as similar dies. But each die, though similar at the start, can either be identified by faults or mistakes in the making of the die or by breaks during it's use.

I'm sure not every die is identifiable with as many as were made from these hubs, but cracks are unique to the die and not the hub and thus die varieties. If mistakes occur during the striking process, they are errors. If they are damages after leaving the mint, they are PMD.

Now whether they are significant for purposes of drawing a premium, that is out of my purview. I'm a collector and numismatist, not a salesman.

 

So, in a sense, as a particular die progresses thru it,s life, one could predict that after each successive strike, the die has worn a little more and is a different die variety after each strike. As I noticed with the subject coin, about 8 diff. examples for sale on E-Bay were at a different stage of deterioration of the same die, so they must be all different die varieties and at the same time, be one die variety at diff. stages of deterioration...I,m a bit confused with this.

 

No. Each die is a variety which then passes though die States/Stages which are often identifiable. But the die variety is tied to the die, not the stage or state.

With a ballpark idea of total number of varieties, you might use 1.01/A.01 so there is no confusion about the die state. There are seldom more than ten die states which usually only changes with a significant change in the die like a crack developing or advancing to a new position or developing a cud. Wear might be used to deterimine if it's a early or late stage of the die state. Here I do differentiate the terms. I hadn't considered it when I chose to call them interchangible.

You might identify a die variety which initially can only be identified by the position of the date. Then it might develop a light crack and becomes a second stage/state of that die. Commonly called 1(I) and 1(II) and then progressing until the terminal state of the die. But it's always die variety 1. The use of roman numerals was used by Breen and was tied to the variety die states rather than each die's (obverse and reverse), but I think it should be tied to the die itself whether used on a single variety or multiple varieties.

Anyway, if we began using the year followed by the die, numbers for obverse and letters for reverse like Sheldon, and identifying the die state/stage with a decimal followed by the state/stage you would get something like 1793 1.1/A.1. This leaves a second decimal position for newly discovered die states. Say a new discovery between 1.1 and 1.2 is discovered. Simply place it as 1.15 and you don't have to worry about changing the entire sequence. For series where there might be hundreds of dies like the Shield Nickels, you would probably want to modify the reverse lettering a bit and go to AA then AB rather than AA then BB and so forth as Sheldon did after going through the alphabet with the first 26 reverse dies.

 

So in this case, the subject coin is in a die state of later deterioration, and the others I compared it to are in a state of lesser deterioration. Or if we identify some of the other comparisons with a title, we might say that the subject coin is in a state of 1(8) while the others might be 1(4) thru 1(6) meaning die variety 1 stage (8) deterioration and so on....

 

Yep!

Though I have propose 1883 1.04/A.04 and 1883 1.08/A.08 for nomenclature. Though it could just as easily be 1883 1.08/A.02 if the obverse die fails more quickly than the reverse die or 1883 1.08/B.01 if an old reverse die is replaced with a new reverse die.

The (4) is usually written as (IV) in Breen's Die State for variety which includes both obverse and reverse changes. Which I don't like, by the way.

 

There is a problem here. Knowing nothing about early copper, I'm happy to take @Marshall's word for it that he is accurately describing how early copper collectors catalog their coins. The descriptions don't work for shield nickels. For example, a shield nickel collector would never call a die crack a variety. (The main types of shield nickel varieties are: RPD, MPD, OVD, DDO, DDR. and Missing Leaf.)

Shield nickel collectors also use die state and stage as I described previously. Appears to be different for early copper.

 

That is very true. The question is whether to resolve the discrepancies or to just leave them disjointed and confusing. Not recognizing that cracks identify a distinctly recognizable die may be simply a response to the numbers of dies required and it's overwhelming consequences. Like I said in an earlier post, a single year could produce more dies than the entire early copper series.

 

Perhaps getting back to the minting process will clear things up a bit.

The coin is produced when a die is used to impress an image onto the finished coin.

A die variety is simply a die which has been identified by some markers.

A die state is a recognizable point where additional markers appear or change significantly as the die is used and deteriorates or is changed by grinding or polishing. A die stage would be that infinitesimal change to the dies with every use which could theoretically produce a perfect sequence of coins produced from that particular die.

A hub is a tool to make dies and not the coins. It is like a punch in that regard. So identifiable hubs are not varieties in themselves, but create a grouping of varieties because of the hub used.

Things which occur at the mint which do not affect the die but do affect the coin are errors.

This would include things like Longacre Doubling or strike doubling. That would have no impact on the die and additional strikes from the die would not have doubling.

This is different than doubling of the die itself which is done during the making of the die, probably by slight misalignment of the hub while attempting to restrike the die to increase detail. But once produced, that particular die variety continues to produce doubled coins for it's remaining life.

This would also include things like clips or wrong planchets or foreign material on the dies or planchets. Grease, polish and even polishing cloths have left such errors. Sometime a previously struck coin is not ejected and a reverse image appears from the previous coin.

Anything which happens after the coin leaves the mint is simplt Post Mint Damage or PMD for short. It doesn't matter whether it enhances the appearance or not. Many smoothed coins or cleaned coins are attractive but it's still PMD.

 

My current thinking is that I found a particular die variety with recognizable markers in a later die state which also has a mint error on the tip of the 5, probably from polish or grease, and also PMD at the 3 and scratch marks to the left of the 5. It probably has diminished value from the latter. The formation of a CUD at the end of the die crack across from the right arrow has a certain appeal to me since I like CUDs.

 

The presence of a crack does not "create" the variety but can be used as a marker to help identify the variety. A two coins from a given pair of dies, one from before the die cracked and one after it cracked, are both the same die variety. They are just different die stages of that variety

A die variety is the product of a specific pair of dies, obv/rev. If either die is changed a new die variety occurs. (The problem comes from fully hubbed dies that can't be told apart because they don't have distinctive markers.)

Marshall has die state and die stage reversed as far as they are typically used.

Die state refers to the condition of wear that the die has received, the state of the die. (new and unworn in the early state moderately worn in the middle state and heavily worn in the late state) Every coin struck will have the die infinitesimally more worn than the preceding coin. We don't try to separate these into more than broad categories EDS, MDS, LDS, VLDS etc.

Die stages refers to discrete changes in the die where we can say this coin is before that happened, then what ever it was happened, and this coin is from after that happened. Examples of things that can create die stages are die clashes, cracks (and extentions of those cracks), die polishings etc.

As examples say you have a new die that has a small gouge (so we can definitely identify the die) and this die was used and used and became ever more worn until it was heavily worn and flowlined but never cracked or clashed before it was retired. This die would be known in VEDS, EDS, E-MDS, MDS, M-LDS, LDS, and VLDS but all of them would be Die Stage I.

But say that same die had struck a few coins, then clashed, then struck a lot of coins becoming worn, then it cracked from the rim across a couple letters, struck some more then the crack extends a couple more letters, and finally strikes a lot more coins but the crack gets no worse.

In this case you would have a VEDS die stage I, (clash) VEDS Die Stage II, MDS Die Stage II, (crack) MDS Die Stage III, (crack extends) MDS Die Stage IV, VLDS Die Stage IV. But they are all the same die variety. (assuming the other die has not been changed.

 

So we have 2 different explanations, both are similar but worded a bit differently...I understand the implications of both, and will give further study to this in the future. Thanks for the feedback!

 

Conder's above post is correct. Regarding varieties though, it's important to realize that coins have three sides; not just the obverse and reverse, but also the edge. You can have multiple varieties that use the same obverse and reverse but have different edges. This can be lettered/plain edge, or a collar change.

As discussed earlier in the thread, dies were used somewhat haphazardly, so it's possible that two dies were used together, and then both used separately, and then used together again by coincidence (called a remarriage). In this case you have coins struck of the same variety where you have a gap in die stages during which the dies were used to strike other varieties.

From collecting bust quarter varieties, each variety (obv/rev die marriage) for each year has a Browning number. So for example 1834 B-2 is a variety consisting of a pairing of obverse die 7, reverse die G, and collar 3. You can further note that obverse die 7 was produced from obverse hub 5 and reverse die G was produced from reverse hub 7. Most (but not all) hubs were used in the production of multiple dies. So you can have one hub used in the creation of 4 dies, and those 4 dies used in 12 varieties.

I use die stage/state very differently than above, and largely based on my readings on bust quarters. The condition of the die itself is the die stage and the progression of die markers on struck coins is the die state.

For example a die starts in pristine condition (stage 1). The die is used to strike variety 1 during which the die cracks (stage 2) and is used to strike variety 2, during which there is a clash (stage 3). The die is then used to strike variety 3 during which there are no stage changes, and then used to strike variety 4. The initial earliest state of variety 4 (stage 3 for the die) is die state 1 for the variety. In this way, every variety always starts at die state 1/1 for obverse/reverse, however, die state 1/1 may be late die stages for the dies themselves.

So in the example above, you will have:
(die stage 1) variety 1 die state 1/x
(die stage 2) variety 1 die state 2/x
(die stage 2) variety 2 die state 1/x
(die stage 3) variety 2 die state 2/x
(die stage 3) variety 3 die state 1/x
(die stage 3) variety 4 die state 1/x

 

If there are differences, Conder is the one I go with. I trust him implicitly.

 

Great thread!

 

One problem you have is that even in the EAC community, many people use the terms state and stage interchangably. It isn't right and it causes a lot of confusion, especially among new collectors. This is why I like to stress the use of correct terminology. Less to unlearn later.

 

Thank,s for the great thread...I learned a lot more about the coins I look at every day...There,a a lot more to see than meets the eye, and now when I study my favorite coins, I will definitely understand them in ways I previously overlooked...Thanks!

 

I know my terminology comes from too much time in Breen's encyclopedia and the Heritage Archives and not enough with the active Large Cent community. They use those terms interchangeably as well. Any standard - forward or backward is better than no standard and that standard should be comprehensive across the different specialty groups.