1834 Bust Half Dollar Question

[jtryka]

Hi everybody! A friend on another forum posted photos of two 1834 halves, I attributed the first one as an O-102 and the second one as an O-101 (I'll link the photos below). So feel free to check my attributions. The question arises in that the coins appear to have the experimental edge with reeding between the letters. I looked in my Overton book, and the only mention of those edges was in 1830 and 1831, has anyone heard of this edge on the 1834 Large Date Large Letters halves? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[MikeKing]

great photos. and thanks for showing the edges we so rarely if ever see. I wish I had an answer but don't, other than overton/parsley mentions IIII in the edging in some 1834's, it's just this also looks like an edge error with the overlap of OR and HALF. JRocco might have an idea.

 

 

[jtryka]

Overton/Parsley is the later edition right? My Overton is the 1990 edition, so perhaps there was an update to include that edge as my edition doesn't mention it at all. Thanks for the help Mike, we'll see what JRocco and others might say on this.

[MikeKing]

yes, the parsley is the later edition. there's an appendix in the back that i didn't even know about until someone pointed it out to me in milwaukee. it doesn't really tell much however. the 1834 edge is described as iiiFIFTYIIICENTSIIIOR IIIHALFIIIA III DOLLAR III*

not having seen any of these raw, I couldn't describe them, but the XXX described variety for 1809 has more than three XXX's in a row, and in a prior post here, I think JRocco showed some interesting edges.

 

 

 

1809 xxx edges

 

the third side

[jtryka]

Wll the edge in the picture here looks very similar to the 1831 experimental edge I have:

 

[MBA101]

It is all just...so...cool.

[jtryka]

Another interesting question is whether the same experimental edge collar was used on all of these. In this case, the edge has the same "OR/ALF" error, but this appears to be two different die marriages. My 1831 does not have that as I recall. Were there different collars used, or did it deteriorate to the point of this error from 1831 to 1834?

[edmerlr]

There is a discussion of the 1834 Bust Half with the "reeded edge" in both Overton books. In the Overton/Parsley book it is called Edge Type 7.

 

In the 3rd Edition look on pages 672 & 673.

In the 4th Edition look on pages 753 & 754.

 

The edge type on your 1834 was adopted in 1831.

 

You will find a discussion of the 1830 thru 1836 edge types in the Leaman/Gunnet treatise that determines the emission order of the Bust Halves. Their article is called Early Half Dollar Edges and Die Sequences.

 

Here are the two pages that deal with the edges on the 1830 thru 1836 coins. The adoption of the edge found on your 1834 is mentioned in the complete paragraph at the top of the second page I have shown.

 

Regards,

 

Ed R.