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I agree, great first post from someone who is doing their own research, takes great pictures, and actually has something. Do you have a closeup of T in Liberty and "We Trust"? The FS-101 isn't super valuable, looks like around $90, but a "discovery" coin probably has some extra cachet. My observation is that the discovery coin process would take some effort. On the storage issue, make sure the staples are flattened so they don't scratch other coins.

I just looked at a few FS-103 on Heritage and I can barely see anything. Last sale was 8 years ago but hardly worth the cost of grading. Like Coinbuf says, tough to say yes or no from your image. The FS-101 looks pretty crazy though.

OK, that's some seriously cool MD. 4x. That machine had to much caffeine. At the macro level, what's up with the spikes coming out of her collar?

I've seen where they shipped 1-5 to SF, then 6-10 to NO. I can guess that the year started out well-synced and then got jumbled as Philly grabbed individual dies for whatever reason. New Orleans does appear to be a little more sloppy - where did that 25th dime die pair go in the list above? Of course not.

I understand that they were trying to track something, I just haven't seen any evidence that they ever did anything with the "data". Like a letter from Barber that "hey, this steel was great, use them again", etc. I also appreciate that they tried to be well organized with the pairings, but it often ended up being a hodgepodge. Again, I've only been focused on 1899-1900. Example, the New Orleans die destruction record for 1899 dies. A lot of nice coordinated groups of five, and a lot of "close but no cigar".

Huh? $4500? Am I on Etsy? I can guess that you see $4500 under MS63 for the 1942-D 42/41 DDO FS-101 in Cherrypickers. I can also see that the rim is worn completely off most of the reverse. Other than that, what the other two said.

I see the title and think "fake" before I even click on it. Jaxman, welcome. Pull up images of a real one (on a real computer with a monitor, not a phone) and put your image next to it. Compare them. Not just "hey, it looks the same", but carefully look at every detail. There's a bazillion of these souvenirs and outright fakes out there. I have one on a tie clip from my grandfather.

CAC on a plus grade cracks me up a little, no offense. What is that, upper two-thirds of the top 30%?

When did the furnace break? The "nub" (die scratch) started appearing with the first Reverse 2 - the 1899-P early release, likely coined in December 1899. It is then on other Reverse 2 coins in 1900 and 1901. Lots of them. So it seems that it was on a master die that propagated to working hubs and dies.

Was Sydney making its own, or were dies shipped from England? Just curious, because on into the 20th century in Canada all the dies came from the Royal Mint. It seems odd that Sydney would get "unique" designs. (I know nothing about Australian coins...)

We might be drawing different conclusions from different records, and my conclusion is based on a small sample - 6 die destruction records from 1899 and 1900, and die shipment letters. My conclusion - sloppy. -- 1899 Philly - 113 obverse dime and 93 reverse destroyed, but no retained numbers. Where did 20 reverse go? Almost none of the denominations are multiples of 5. -- 1899 New Orleans - Philly says dime Nos 22, 23, 24 retained, but New Orleans returned 122, 123, 124. -- 1899 SF - Philly says 23 dies reserved, but which denominations? SF returned 25 obverse but 20 reverse - where did 5 reverse dies go? Adding back the 23 reserved, and assuming they're not dimes, adds up to multiples of 5. -- 1900 Philly - almost no multiples of 5. 92 dime obverse, 64 reverse. Were 28 retained? Philly never says whether any of theirs are retained. -- 1900 New Orleans - list says "all reverse". Where did the obverse dies go? If I add back the retained dies, all multiples of 5 except half dollars - 24 dies. One disappeared? -- 1900 SF - Philly says 85 obverse, 26 reverse Double Eagle dies, 9 reverse retained - so 85 obverse but only 35 reverse? They do add up to multiples of 5. I can understand that they tried to ship them in matched numbered pairs, but I still can't come up with a reason why it would have mattered. It's not like a specific obverse die had to be paired with a specific reverse die. If they were trying to track something related to die life or production, I don't see any evidence that it mattered to Philadelphia when they got the dies and lists back at year end. The basic goal for me with this was to try to determine where the transition anomaly dies came from. The 1899-S Reverse 1 anomalies, probably the missing 5 dies above. The 1902-1905 Reverse 2 anomalies in SF is tougher to answer. I estimate that SF minted 1.5 million Reverse 2 coins post-1901, but I can only come up with 6 1900 SF reverse dies "retained for future use". I have also not seen any evidence of retained dies being shipped back out. 90% of the people on here are probably going "blah blah blah, how much is it worth?" :)

I'm curious what these "die use lists" are and where to find them. Is it different than the die shipment and destruction letters? Not meaning to disagree with you, but I don't see that strict of a rhyme or reason with the die pairs. For example: New Orleans destruction records, 1899, all denominations. Synched for a few sets, then wildly off. For example, the dime dies skip from 20 to 80 for the obverse, but the reverse goes from 20 to 74, and the next three sets don't have any die numbers in common. https://archive.org/details/rg104entry229box106/page/n525/mode/2up This 1900 letter shows five pairs of dime dies shipped to SF. Obverse dies 66-70, reverse dies 63-67. Only 66 and 67 could have been paired with each other. https://archive.org/details/rg104entry229box114/page/n153/mode/2up I may have misinterpreted what you said. Certainly it seems like they tried to do it that way, but reality got in the way. I can't fathom why it would have mattered anyway.

If you mean why were there three dime reverse types but only two obverse, I suspect the third reverse, with the thick ribbon added, was purely an aesthetic change and had nothing to do with die wear or production. I've only found relevant die destruction records for 1899 and 1900 so far. These records are inconsistent. Sometimes they recorded specific die numbers, other times not, etc. I'd have to wade back thru the records and look again. They shipped them in pairs of 5 dies, sometimes all denominations, sometimes just dimes or dollars. Philly might ship die pairs numbered 1-5 to New Orleans, and 6-10 to SF. In one case they ship 5 pairs to SF, numbered 20-24 for the obverse and 23-27 for the reverse. In 1899, New Orleans destroyed 24 obverse and reverse dies, not a multiple of 5. Philly always had odd numbers. Etc. Each mint and year has a separate letter documenting die destruction, and they're scattered around NNP. Each die shipment is also a separate letter. It's tough to glean anything from it. I don't think they paid any attention to which pair of dies was matched up either in shipping or production. We know that a certain number of reverse dies "reserved for future use" were still good at the end of a year, but we'll never know how many obverse dies were still good, because they were dated, and thus destroyed anyway. According to the destruction records for 1899 and 1900, Philly averaged 173,282 from an obverse and 210,547 from a reverse in 1899. S and O less than half that. Similar true for 1900. S and O clearly had problems with die life.

I haven't had time to piece all this together, but there were complaints from SF and NO about die life around this time (January 1900). Curiously, these early January 1900 complaints would have been after they started using Reverse 2 dime dies, so that wasn't the inspiration behind the design change, but perhaps was a response to earlier complaints, or just something Barber noted earlier in Philadelphia, without correspondence on it. Coiner A.W. Downing was dispatched to New Orleans, and possibly SF, in January 1900 to address these complaints. I have not so far seen anything specifically mentioning design changes to dimes, quarters, or halves, yet they all happened in 1900 and 1901. The records I found, some linked below, are interesting to read, but no smoking gun. It's interesting to note that SF and NO seemed to have had a penchant for doing their own thing. SF milled dime dies with a thinner neck, and NO asked Barber if he could give them dollar dies with the obverse on the bottom of the press and reverse on the top, for "experimenting". San Francisco complaining about dime die life 01/04/1900 https://archive.org/details/rg104entry229box107/page/n221/mode/2up Barber responding to SF about die life 01/06/1900 https://archive.org/details/rg104entry229box107/page/n429 Downing sent to New Orleans 01/24/1900 https://archive.org/details/rg104entry235vol318no/page/n31 Downing reporting on what he determined in New Orleans - annealing of the planchets 02/07/1900 https://archive.org/details/rg104entry229box109/page/n95 Downing reporting to New Orleans roughly the same thing 02/21/1900 https://archive.org/details/rg104entry229box112/page/n11/mode/2up There's also a record of a letter received in New Orleans, but I can't find the letter - "Enclosing letter from C.E.Barber Engraver about dies", no indication which dies 10/21/1899 https://archive.org/details/NaraRg104Entry28/page/n39

I only said 1999 because after that, all dies were single-squeezed (supposedly). Various denominations happened earlier. My knowledge only comes from https://www.doubleddie.com/58201.html There are still lots of DDs, they just don't happen the same way, and I'm not sure if the mint solved the problem. There seem to be a bazillion of them since then, but they're all too obscure and microscopic for me to care about. Some of the ear ones on Lincoln are cool I guess.

I have not found any documentation at all on this at NNP. I would have to guess it was Barber's initiative, possibly related to complaints from SF and NO about die life, possibly for the obverse an effort to lower relief so Liberty didn't wear so quickly (Bowers I think has a comment on this in his red book). Dimes, quarters, and halves all had subtle changes in 1900 and 1901. I'd have to look it up - I recall quarters and halves have transition varieties during a single year, but dimes span 1899-1905. I recently learned that Seated Dimes also have reverse transition varieties for 1876-1878. The differences are as subtle as the Barbers. Heritage calls out Type One or Type Two on over 600 listings for the Seated Dimes. I don't think I've ever seen a Barber dime marketed with a type.

The dime obverse changed in 1901. Subtle differences similar to the quarter. As mentioned above, I discovered that 1901-O has one die's worth of Obverse 1 (1892-1900) as a transition variety. No others have been found (so far) for P or O mints.

My understanding is that any "Doubled Die" after 1999 is basically the result of the same thing, but the "shuck & jive" occurred during the single-squeeze hubbing. So when people think they're seeing a new DD, it's important to remember that traditional doubled dies don't happen after 1999, because the dies are only pressed once.

Are you talking about a "journal" on this website?

I do. Attached is a screenshot from my spreadsheet. PM me your email and I'd be glad to send you the actual spreadsheet. Still a work in progress. Most of the numbers are my own census of HA auction archives, and for sale listings on ebay. They are a snapshot in time, mostly done between roughly January and June 2019. Off the top of my head, I'd say each percentage for year/mint is based on examining images of at least 100 coins. It was a time consuming effort and I doubt I will repeat it - I looked at over a thousand coins. Are you a BCCS member? ($15/year, well worth it). A couple of the numbers might be from John Reynolds' excellent Fall 2017 article. He covered the 1901-1905 varieties. His estimates were pretty close to mine. Of course his article pre-dated my discovery of the third reverse and the 1899-P and 1900-S anomalies. I found 1903-S Reverse 3 to be the toughest. The image does not show 1901 Proof - 40% Reverse 2 and 60% Reverse 3. Since I first posted this thread, I've decided that Reverse 3 (thick ribbon) was implemented around April 1901. The anomaly percentages for P, O, S, and proofs all line up with the monthly coinage records for 1901 Jan-Mar production. The image does not show the 1901-O Obverse 1 variety, a separate BCCS article I also posted on here somewhere. 1901-O Obverse 1 is about 2%, and I'm fairly certain it was the output from a single die. All the examples I have seen have the same 1/1 RPD. This one is also tough to find. Funny that you revived this thread. I've been piecing together a "presentation" slideshow on all this. I might post a rough draft here soon. I recently finished getting an example of all of the "less common" varieties (excluding the 1901 Proof Reverse 2). I'm looking for a way to show them off and also promote a better understanding of these varieties. A registry set would be cool, but nobody recognizes them (hint @DWLange ). There are 11 "less common" transition varieties, and if you want one of each type, 1899-1905, it's 21 coins. Thanks for your interest.

I, on the other hand, am not going to "venture out" for the foreseeable future. 6% of the positives in my age group / state are dead. For a coin show? Nah.

You're the symmetric difference then. (I had to look that up)

How about if you just leave me out of this? I already said that I don't know anything about these. I looked up "French 20-franc gold rooster" and that was the extent of it. Now you're lumping me in with some nefarious cabal who is out to ignore your precious niche. I don't appreciate it. Life and coin collecting are unfair. Get over it.

DO NOT GO THERE. I just got a threat secured warning from my virus protection.

I gave you the weigh & dimensions above - does it match? People are joking around about "dino", not you. Don't be so easily offended. I didn't find any fakes for sale on that Chinese site, which is a plus. But overall it doesn't look good to me. Frond, leaf, and ribbon details are mushy and missing on the reverse. Obverse the top of F is missing, and weird chunks gone in the surface indicate some kind of cheap metal. Get a free account at Heritage, look one up, compare it to yours. Weigh your coin. Do some work.