This is an interesting series as there are many date and mint mark variations and die varieties. The Half Dime is most often collected as part of a Type set and rarely ever bought with the intention of completing the entire series. The Seated Liberty Half Dime was first minted in 1837 and was designed by Christian Gobrecht. The 1837 design featured an obverse with "no stars", a depiction of "Liberty" seated, her left hand holding a pole holding a Liberty Cap and her right hand is holding a shield sporting horizontal and vertical lines with the word "Liberty" running diagonally across it. The obverse 1837 Half Dime is a one year design. On the reverse of the 1837 Half Dime is two sprays of laurel tied below with ribbon with the words "Half Dime" in the center. There are 14 leaves and 6 berries on each side. There are eleven different die varieties for the 1837 Half Dime, either obverse and reverse or obverse or reverse. Mintage: 1,405,000 Proofs: Est. 20 90% Silver Dia.: 15.9 mm The edge is reeded The 1837 Half Dimes were only minted in Philadelphia. In the small date and large date varieties the values are very comparable, starting around $30 dollars for an example in G4 and going up between $500-600 dollars in MS60. Making this issue very affordable in any grade. The best examples of this date in Unc. are 2 graded by PCGS as MS67, one of which sold in Oct. 2001 for $5850 dollars. If I may be allowed, I'd like to post info about a different Half Dime at random, if interest is there from the members and with the support of Doug and Peter of course. Thanks for reading! Kevin
Please do. I think Half Dimes are a very interesting series. I don't catch your drift. When you post the other Half Dimes perhaps you can explain what that means. BTW, the two pics you posted did not display for me.
I don't have The Book on these. Can anyone attribute this one ? Cool idea. Please do ! Thanks for posting !
I agree please do post information. And this one is much nicer than my $20 dollar no star half dime. Nice coin.
Thanks Hobo, I have uploaded the pics a different way so hopefully they show up now for you. As for the die varieties that I was attempting to explain, if I may elaborate, the eleven different die varieties are explained in Valentines book as either being on the obverse only, on the reverse only or on both the obverse and reverse of the same coin. I hope this makes sense. In other words, without typing it from the book, which I dont think I'm allowed to do in detail, it breaks down like this for the dies. 1 Obverse and Reverse 2 Obverse and Reverse 3 Obverse (same as #2), Reverse 4 Obverse (similar to #1), Reverse (die of #2) 4a Obverse (die of #4), Reverse (die of #2) 5 Obverse (die of #4), Reverse (die of #1) 5a Obverse (die of #4), Reverse (die of #1) 5b Obverse (die of #4a) Reverse (die of #1) 6 Obverse (There's a bad flaw to the right arm of Liberty continuing down from the knee), Reverse (Die of #2) 6a Obverse (die crack now extends from Libertys heel to the edge of the coin), Reverse (same as #6 but more pronounced) 6b Obverse (Same as #6a, except a die crack runs from Libertys cap to the edge of the coin. Reverse(same as #6a) This is just a very brief description of the die varieties as I dont believe I'm allowed to go into detail and copy it from the book into my post. To attribute some of the varieties a very close up picture is required (for me anyway) to see the die cracks and doubling in some areas. If anyone needs this explained in detail for any date in this series let me know and I'll PM you the info. Thanks for your interest.
Thanks. Anyone care to venture your personal grading opinion ? Some things to consider : The photos are a little overexposed and washed out just a bit. re: The toning on the reverse... take a look at the outermost band, nearest the denticles. In the photo, there is a sharp line 'twixt it and the next toning band. That does not happen on the coin in hand under incandescent. All the toning bands smoothly meld into one another. The obverse streaks at 11:30, 12noon, and 1:30 are on the PCGS plastic, not the coin. I'll post the slab photo a little later.
Thats a beautiful example of an 1837 Half Dime. As for grade, I'm going to have to say MS65. Very nice fields and details from what I can tell. I think I need to get a new laptop, this one is getting blurry.
I agree MS65 - beauty of a coin, from what I can see of the picture. Yours is on one end of the scale and mine is on the other.
My 1837 Half Dime is actually nowhere near the quality of 900fines' Half Dime. Mine is closer to F12. I'll be posting pics of all of mine in my CT album very soon.
Next to the A&R seated issues, this "no stars" design is my favorite seated type. Great examples in this thread too!
Thanks for posting the slab. I surely would have thought it would have graded higher than that. Beautiful coin anyway.
I agree with others here in giving the opinion that the 'no stars' variety is the most elegant of the Seated Liberty series. This goes for dimes as well as 1/2 dimes. Indianhead, thanks for the thread.
The Half Dime in general is one of my favorite coin series. Its challenging in a few different ways. The coins themselves are fairly inexpensive except for a few and finding the low mintage issues isnt really that hard to do but finding them in nice grades VF-AU is very difficult in some cases. As small as these coins are its also hard to find nice examples that arent bent or worn very badly. My main criteria for these coins is eye appeal but when you're searching for an example with a mintage of say 120,000 its hard to be choosy. Thanks, I really enjoy doing the research and posting info for everyone.
That's how I felt when I bought it ! Still feel that way. Might resubmit, but only later if I feel like selling.
If you ever feel like selling that coin, please let me know. I think I saw it for sale before you bought it and kicked myself for not jumping on it then...Mike
