About those Gardner part 4 coins...

In a journal this past July I wrote that I had purchased an 1838 Small Stars half dime. It is a nice looking example of an early state of the dies. Well, the state is about as early as it gets for this variety, but the dies are not pristine. The obverse die in particular had a notable amount of rust damage from the beginning of its use in actually striking coins.

Being from an early state of the obverse die, the stars appear pretty much normal. The only abnormality is some "doubling" on several of the stars (that could be used to identify the die if it had been used before its first episode of rusting). So if the stars were more or less normal, why is the variety known as Small Stars?

Except for the rusting, it was apparently a perfectly good die. So the damage was eliminated, from the fields but not from various places in the main design, by aggressively polishing the die. In the pristine die the incuse stars have their full size. But as the die is polished, metal is taken away, and the stars (and any other features) become a little smaller and shallower, and therefore appear smaller and in lower relief on the struck coins. This is most apparent on features like the stars that are small to begin with. There were apparently several episodes of polishing, with the stars getting smaller and shallower each time. In the latest known state of the die, some of the stars are barely there at all.

In addition to a couple early state examples similar to mine, part 4 of the Gardner collection sale included a piece struck from a much later state of the obverse die. Despite the ongoing rust damage and polishing of this die, the first reverse die had been retired and another was used with the late state of this obverse. I bought that coin, pictured below.

The Philadelphia mint also made small stars dimes in 1838. But those were not a result of a heavily polished die. One of the obverse dime dies for that year had stars punched in using the half dime star punch rather than the dime star punch! Such were the adventures adding stars to Gobrecht's starless design.

Here's the late state obverse of my 1838 Small Stars half dime from the Gardner sale. Enjoy!

Alan

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