1979 SBA wide rim

[Snowman24]

hello, could someone help me to identify 1979P SBA's with the variety of wide rim vs narrow rim. Is that variety easy/hard to distinguish and is it on both sides, or have they been struck offcenter ? I've seen some NGC graded wide rims on ebay but the pictures have been poor and i cant tell the difference between the common narrow rims. thanks Jeff

[Die Varieties]

Welcome!

 

Here's a link to some info on the SBA's. Scroll down a bit and there are a couple of pics depicting the wide and narrow rim varieties. Hope this helps.

 

Link to SBA Web Page

[cladking]

These coins probably comprise 2-3% of the mintage of the '79-P. They do not appear in the regular mint set and there's no dollar at all in the regular souvenir set. There is a special 3-pc souvenir set that has a few of these coins but only about 1%.

 

Gems of this can be tough to find unless you have access to bags of '79 dollars since they aren't in the sets. The '79-S is also tough in gem for the same reasons.

[Beijim]

These coins probably comprise 2-3% of the mintage of the '79-P.

According to the linked web site, there were a estimated 160,750,000 wide border 1979-P coins struck from some 643 dies at 250,000 strikes per die. The total 1979-P mintage including both varieties appears as 360,222,000 on the web page and in the Red Book. The projected 160,750,000 wide border coins therefore comprise approximately 44.6% of the total 1979-P coins struck.

 

An interesting note is that our general numismatic focus on the 1979-P wide border variety gives the impression that the wide border is an anomaly. For 1979 this is true in that all mints (P, D, S) used narrow border dies for the entire year's production except for Philadelphia, which used the wide border dies to produce a projected 45% of its output. However, all mints used wide border dies for their 1980 and 1981 production. From the perspective of the three years 1979-1981, then, the wide border is the "standard" border, whereas the narrow border was superceded after only one year of use. The mintages are so dominated by the 1979 production that the narrow border variety (in all three mint marks) remains the preponderant majority in absolute numbers.

 

Beijim

[Snowman24]

thanks for the replys plus the other question feeds on this. Out of all the 55-60 79P's I have, I've found only 2 wide rims out of the group which seems to follow Cladking's % reply. so the percentage must be low.

[McKinley-migration]

i thought the near date was the common one... it is isn't it? maybe i should read every word in this thread, but i'm still missing the near date for my set.. haven't come by one yet.