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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;johnmilton, post: 26638744, member: 101855&quot;]Years ago I owned a 1797, 16 star dime. I sold the piece when I bought an upgrade for the type. A few months ago I bid on a 1797, 16 star dime in a similar grade to the one I had sold, but didn’t get it. I found out that a dealer had bought it. He and I met at the FUN show, and we agreed on a price. The grade is PCGS VF-25.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1699067[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>This dime offers some interesting insights into the workings of the first United States Mint. Quality steel for coin dies was in short supply, and sometimes the mint used subpar quality metal to get by.</p><p><br /></p><p>The big die break above the date is on all of the known pieces. The die probably broke during the hardening process. Since the date area didn’t fall off the die entirely, the mint personnel used it. Gradually over time the die sank more and more until the date disappeared.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1699068[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>I found this picture of the terminal or near terminal die state on the Internet some years ago.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1699069[/ATTACH]</p><p>There was also the matter of squeezing 16 stars on the obverse. Tennessee had just become a state, and the mint had the idea of adding a star each time a new state joined the Union. The die sinker, probably Robert Scot, cut little hash marks which still show in some places to help space the stars.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1699070[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>After this the mint personnel realized that they didn’t have room for any more stars. They cut back to 13 which represented the original 13 states. This represents some of the fun aspects of collecting early U.S. coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>This dime is fairly scarce. There are probably fewer than 200 of them in all grades, which go up to MS-65. The coin does not appear very frequently, even in the major auctions.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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