I've been away from coins for a few years and decided to sell this bust half. After looking at it, I feel there's a number of issues, and hoping someone here can offer some feedback. Is the obverse "tooled" in any way? I remember years ago someone mentioned something about this. And why does the edge have what appears to be remnants of reeding? All the edge lettering is there. Any info would be appreciated!
There are several differnt edge styles used throughout the series. In an attempt to help prevent slippage of the edge dies during lettering they placed the "reeds" between some of the letters to help the die "bite into" the planchet and not slip.
That reeded-style rim was the norm for 1832. It's O-112, immediately recognizable by the errant "1" base punched to the left of the existing digit. As Conder mentioned, slippage during the planchet's trip through the Castaing Machine was an ongoing problem with Bust Halves, and overlapped/missing edge lettering abounds in the series. I immediately suspected the definition of the clasp - it's a feature not normally so well-defined at this level of wear - but looking at a few lower grade examples at Heritage indicate this variety received good strikes there so I'm reassured. With that being the case, one would think the coin to be unmolested, at least in the "tooling" aspect.
