This is what appears to be a S-168 R3. What I'm not seeing is the strong break around the legend. It is worn and possibly this is the reason. The first two die states were not seen by Breen and are each already showing the breaks on this well used reverse. I simply ask if any of you can see the breaks that should be there. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140593881634
I am not seeing any breaks. Tried several different things with the pictures, but the corrosion gets in my way. So I can't say for sure, but only that I can't see the breaks.
I can't see them either, but my guess is it's a combination of how worn the coin is, corrosion, and lighting angle for the picture. The envelope is from Rob Burress who I would trust to make the attribution correctly, although I know people make mistakes.
I don't see the cracks but it is probably because of the condition of the coin (one reason I try to avoid using cracks to attribute varieties. If a crack is clearly visible you can use it to confirm a variety, but since they can be hard to see or missing in early die states I don't like to use them as a primary identifier.). Everything else points to S-168.
Thank you for your input. The reverse identification with the leaf under the right side of S rather than past it and the leaf at the tip of the right tail of R and the leaf tip pointing outside the serif of the N)T. Seem solid without the breaks. But this die is paired with the type two hair obverse which should normally be at the tail end of it's very long life. If this is one of the unseen early die states or perhaps even an earlier state than ever reported, this would throw a real monkey wrench into the introduction timing of the type II style hair since the die state of the reverse would have the style II pairing preceding all known pairings with style I hair and then it's being again paired after those type I hair pairings were completed. I wish, I wish this were in a little better shape. It could answer some questions.
I doubt if the so called early die states exist because neither the S-148 and S-153, which have the same reverse, are known uncracked. my bet would be that the die pairing that created S-168 was struck after the mint reopened after the annual yellow fever epidemic and they used whatever dies they could get their hands on. Otherwise the heavily cracked reverse would surely not have been pressed back into service.
