Proof or Business Strike?

I certainly agree with the usefulness of examining both sides of a coin when attributing varieties.

One must still be cognizant that reverse dies and obverse dies were not changed in unison, and that unexpected pairings do occur, so that a given variety on one side may be paired with a die on the other side that may not match attribution guides.

 

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Yes, you're right about that. However, with the Accented Hair Variety Half Dollar, and others not involved in this thread, the reverse is most certainly an important indication to check the obverse for the particular variety. The broken ray reverse die outlasted the Accented Hair obverse die, but they were specifically paired together. The reverse lasted longer and the thread from this forum that I linked previously points that out. You will find broken rays with a normal obverse but not accented hair with a regular obverse. If you were talking to Insider, he just turned it into a complete argument. They did change dies often but more likely than not, you will find specific Die Pairings for specific errors such as basically EVERY VAM Morgan Dollar for example because it's well known.

 

Actually it's extremely rare to find modern coins without the same die pairs from my understanding! When they would switch out dies, knowing the particular die was causing errors, they would polish or file them away before continuing to strike more errors. Right?

 

I guess this is not the case for the particular half dollar variety in question, but it kind of turned into general error attribution of sorts. The Accented Hair wasn't even an error so This is all for a different thread but I think Chris was correct to a degree because of what looked to be a broken seriff from my picture, and as much Insider also had a point that in other than rare circumstances, a specific marker can tell the tale on the error, even if it's the opposite side of the coin. But by changing out the die used, a marker on the opposite side doesn't necessarily mean it will be an error. Just what I have gathered but I don't know anything so...

 

The reason multiple die pairings happen with individual dies is, they pull the "bad" die for amelioration, and pair the remaining one with a fresh companion to keep production flowing. By the time the pulled die is ready, its' former mate has worn out. Using Morgans as an example, as long as there's no problems you would be lucky indeed to get more than three days' production in the complete lifetime of a die. Today's presses are capable of four times that rate, and a die's lifespan is probably one shift these days.

 

Except that die life has also lengthened. A quarter die say now has a life of maybe 750K strikes and the press runs at 750 coins per minute so that die would last some 16 hours or two shifts. A cent die can last more than a million strikes. A nineteenth through mid twentieth century die in a modern press would only last four hours if it made it through its entire normal run.

 

My preference is a little paprika.

 

To the OP,

Unfortunately, 1964 was a weird date for coins. There are even proofs still coming out of original pliofilm proof set holders, in which some of the coins exhibit little to no mirrors. On the other hand, there are monster cameos coming out of pliofilm, too. What is truly unusual from my experience is real monster quality coins coming from the red-striped or blue-striped uncirculated set holders of 1964; most are pretty "meh". The weird fact is that if I were asked to assemble put-together higher quality 1964 non-proof "year sets", I'd want to start from original rolls, not any sort of set. I especially see more 1964 cent and half dollar rolls floating around than I care to count, and some of the pieces in them are real nice, a few almost PL.

 

Is it just the lighting, or is that a wicked awesome depth rim?

 

By finding these coins in rolls, isn't it quite possible that the Proof Like or very nice coins were struck from the 1965 SMS dies after their production since the 1964's had to be struck long into 1965? The dies of their attempt at the SMS Proof type coins would still have had their life cut short like a normal proof die I imagine. So in theory, they would probably use those dies first to continue the 1964 strikes after changing the 5 back to a 4 and refinishing the dies right? Also, they knew 1964 would be the last year for the composition used, so experimenting for 1965 SMS would be out of the question in early 1964 I would think. Something just tells me the SP 1964 coins had to have been struck in 1965. Either by changing the used SMS Dies or by refinishing the 1964 Proof dies to try producing an average Business Strike 1964 to continue the production. So the SP's may be the few rarities in existence but the same dies were probably used until they were retired, but only a select few show the quality of the original strikes from these dies. I'm not thinking these are it but the open ended story on the SP sets drives me crazy, mainly because of the crazy prices realized on something that can just as often be seen on other years where the first couple hundred coins are struck from refinished or retired proof dies. The details on the SP's are the same seen on many other coins that are PL or show planchet striations and polish lines. So $45k for a half dollar makes sense for 1964 because unlike most years, there is no record to base the fairy tale on. It was basically up in the air back in the 90's too and maybe someone made the sets you speak of and capitalized on that at the original auction and now they are what they are with no way to dispute their story.

 

Well, in modern years, the Mint never has "re-dated" dies at all. They don't, and didn't in that era, ever take off a 4 and put on a 5. HOWEVER, they sure could, and occasionally have, put on a "wrong" reverse die. There are fairly numerous examples of these, such as Near AM vs. Far AM cents. The actual rehubbing of the half didn't happen until 1971. All 40% silver half hubs used the very same master hub relief as from 1964. Only the date was different.

I have VERY little to go on for authenticating 1964 SMS coins, but I'd sure like to read more.

 

So there is absolutely no way this is an Over Date?

 

I'd call it, if anything, initially hubbed from a 5 and then hubbed by a 4, like the 1942/1 dime, but with less even pressure. No one re-dated a working die. The position of what looks like part of a 5 is all wrong. Too far right. Besides, has ANYONE ever authenticated a 1964/5 overdate? Anywhere? Not that I know of. Far more likely is you're seeing die breakages around the 4.

What's the latest overdate ever authenticated? Is it the 1943/2 nickel?

If you stop and think about it, there is far LESS reason to ever re-date a die from that era, since multiple dates were being struck concurrently in the mid-60's. There was no hard cutover of dates on a particular day, unlike in most years. By the 1960's, die making was a piece of cake, not the difficult matter it was in the 19th and early 20th century.

 

My opinion is that the under number is another 4 and is higher than the 4 from the 2nd hubbing.

From what I have been able to gather over the years, all of the 1965 coins were produced in San Francisco while the 1964 coins were being struck at Denver and Philadelphia as late as 1966.

It is unlikely that dies crossed from one production line to another because of the different facilities used to make them.

 

Didn't Philadelphia produce the dies to ship off the SF? There aren't Mint Marks on this set either but that could be either mint as well or am I mistaken?

 

I believe from what I read the SMS coins were minted at the SF Mint, but used a different coin press to do so and that's just another mystery to wonder. We're the known SP coins struck in Philly or SF?

 

The known 1964 SP coins are assumed to have been produced at Philly.

The SF facility was just an Assay Office in 1965, not a Mint.

 

It says on their COA they were struck on high tonnage coin presses and from what I found, those were SF presses. And I do believe I have seen the SMS envelopes that said San Fransisco on them?

 

Yep, San Francisco, CA

 

I,ve often thought that the Philly Mint made these S P,s as a test set for Mrs. Kennedy,s approval of the new hair design. The type 1 obv. design has still never been encountered in mint state. The vary reason for S P,s existing at all would make sense if this were the case. 64 Proofs were all made in Philly, and SMS coins were all made in S F, the new proof making facility. Rick Tomaska refers to the S P strikes as "proof patterns", which also would explain the type 2 obv. design change. The rev. on the S Ps is the type 1 var. If this coin has the type 2 rev., than it,s not a S P. After seeing your rev. photo, I believe it,s the type 2 variety, so your set is likely comprised of 64 bus. strikes, as mentioned earlier, 64 mint sets come in a wide variety of finishes and 2 rev. varieties.