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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Publius2, post: 21232547, member: 105571&quot;]Received the Flynn book one day after I ordered it from Amazon, brand new for $28.&nbsp; Here&#039;s what Flynn has to say about your suspicion.&nbsp; I have necessarily condensed and paraphrased his commentary in the interest of brevity:</p><p><br /></p><p>A Small Motto master hub was created to make the obverse working die for the Small Motto pattern coins.&nbsp; That same Small Motto master hub was used to make a second working die for Small Motto business strikes.&nbsp; There are no differences between the Judd 366 pattern obverse and the 1864 SM proof obverse showing the same doubling and date position.&nbsp; The 1864 SM business strike obverse is the same design as the pattern/proof and only shows the lack of doubling and a difference in the date position showing that they both came from the same hub. (Dates were hand-struck into working dies of both pattern/proof and business strike dies) This was done before the final design was approved for the coinage.&nbsp; The pattern working die was used to strike proofs to satisfy collector demand so all 1864 Small Motto proof obverses are the same as the patterns.&nbsp; The business strikes of the 1864 SM used the one working die but this design was not the approved design for the coinage so only a few coins were struck from this obverse before the approved Large Motto design was implemented and striking began.</p><p><br /></p><p>Flynn doesn&#039;t say anything regarding my original question of strike quality except to say that the SM is usually well-struck.</p><p><br /></p><p>As to rusting of the 1864 SM obverse working die:&nbsp; Judd 366 and other pattern coins struck from the 1864 SM pattern/proof working die were all struck in early 1864.&nbsp; The proofs struck from the pattern die were all struck in early 1864.&nbsp; So, if the 1864 SM business strike obverse die was struck at the same time as the pattern/proof die, then that business strike obverse die would have sat around unused from early 1864 until business striking began in late April, 1864.&nbsp; Could it have rusted in this short time frame?&nbsp; Maybe.&nbsp; But there are plenty of business strikes that don&#039;t show any evidence of rusting and there was only one die so I don&#039;t think the evidence points to a rusted die.</p><p><br /></p><p>Thanks for eveyone&#039;s input.&nbsp; Spurred me on to do some research and buy the book.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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