NEW RULE: Read the book completely. One thing nice about my camera is that it picks up features on a coin that I can't see with my eye -- or even 3x magnification. This is the reverse of my 1831 Capped Bust Quarter, B-1. The image's size is what I use for posting purposes. It's reduced to 35% from my original image. I noticed that line between the leaves and the wing at about the 7-8 position. I hadn't noticed it previously. The thought, "Oh, rats, a scratch" flash through my mind. I grabbed my Tompkins's guide and lo and behold it's the product of a die break. The guide says it and several other features indicate that it's a Die Stage 3. With my 10x loupe I can follow the whole die crack on the coin from the "2" clockwise up to the second "S" in STATES. And the guide pointed me to another die crack starting at the "5" and going counterclockwise to the last "A" in AMERICA. To see more of the die cracks look at my original image. WARNING: This is a LARGE picture if it expands. And something else I picked up from the book. Look at the lowest horizontal line in the shield and between the first and second vertical set of lines. It looks like there's a die chip there -- but no! It's the centering dot for the reverse die. I'll have to look elsewhere for more info about centering dots.
Yeah, you would expect such relatively-small structures to begin expanding first when a die crack meets them.
Back in the days when the dies were made by hand, the die sinker would use a compass to lightly scribe a base line arc on the die to assist in the punching in of the lettering. the point of the compass in the center of the die would leave an indentation, this is the "center dot". Sometimes on high grade early die state coin the base line scribe can still be seen between the letters at the base. Some times they would also put a scribe line to indicate where the top of the letters would be as well. The idea being to punch the letters in inbetween the line to to keep them even. Center dots can be seen on a great many early coins if you look for them. One of the easiest places to see them is on the reverses of the lage cent where they are out in the field between the words ONE CENT. For example on this 17 N-1
Oooooo, excellent post. I suspect that pretty much covers the topic of "center dots". Thanks VERY much.
