Half Dime struck from rusty die

[RGT]

Here is a new half dime I picked up recently. It's in an old fatty NGC MS65 slab and was struck from a rusty obverse die. It also looks like the die was polished to remove the rust and it worked fairly well on the fields, but not so well on Liberty. The folds in the gown below Liberty's arm are almost ground off and I can see some polish lines in spots on the devices.

 

 

[fishfinder]

(thumbs u yeehaw i'm liken the look of that half dime , head, gown strap detail and color you betcha, wouldn't care if it is has Polish lines.....

[EZ_E]

Randy, you are most definitely a Little Lady Liberty magnet! Very nice coin with a lesson! Thanks for sharing!

[BillJones]

That's neat. (thumbs u

 

Philadelphia is very humid in the summer, and if the mint workers were not careful the dies would indeed rust. Many years ago I had a very high grade 1854 Type II gold dollar that had die rust all through the letters on the obverse. And yes, the coin was genuine. I traded for a couple early U.S. gold coins that had a value of several thousand dollars.

[dean1345]

Very nice half dime and unique too.

 

Dean

[James_OldeTowne]

Very cool! If memory serves correct, there was an exceptionally rusty obverse die used by Carson City on some 1875-CC dimes. When you see these, they are so bad that the coins almost look like cast fakes.

[MBA101]

That coin is just plain neat!

[Just Bob]

Question:

 

Did repeated striking smooth out the rough rusty areas in the same way that it smoothed out the cameos on proof and prooflike coins?

[BillJones]

Question:

 

Did repeated striking smooth out the rough rusty areas in the same way that it smoothed out the cameos on proof and prooflike coins?

 

It probably did, but unless there are other die markers that could help you determine the die state, AND you have two or more coins to compare, how can you tell?

[Conder101]

I would imagine so, after all the moving metal would provide the same polishing action in either case. But the roughness caused by the die rust is much coarser than the finely etched surface of the cameo so the chances are it would never polish it away completely.

[RI AL]

Breen (is he still in jail or has he moved on?) states that "...proofs often show rust on seated figure".

[Conder101]

Breen died of cancer in prison years ago while serving time for parole violation.

[RI AL]

Thanks, Condor. You're an incredible wealth of information!

 

RI Al

[EZ_E]

Breen died of cancer in prison years ago while serving time for parole violation.

 

What was he in for? It sure wasn't for swiping ANS's choice large cents.

[toyonakataro]

Nice coin, Randy.

I think one example in NGC68 auctioned by Heritage early this year has similar feature to yours.

[Conder101]

PM sent to Ez_E

[RGT]

Thanks for all the comments. I'm glad the discussion evolved into something educational, even if some less savory aspects of Breen were aluded to.

 

Nice coin, Randy.

I think one example in NGC68 auctioned by Heritage early this year has similar feature to yours.

 

Thanks for pointing that out. I don't spend a lot of time looking at MS68 half dimes and I missed that one. I had never seen another one from this rusty obverse die before. It clearly looks like the same die. The obverse is slightly proof-like from all of the polishing. The MS68 even has a similar weak strike on the upper left wreath. I guess you don't have to have a decent strike to get an MS68 these days.