Lot 1739

Logan-McCloskey Plate Coin, Page 176. Brilliant with frosty silver lustre and extremely faint champagne toning. Minor abrasions are consistent with the grade. This is a very rare die marriage with not more than 12 known, based on the definition of Rarity-7. The variety was discovered in 1983 with a second example located in 1986. 15 years later, in December 2001, a total of six examples were recorded in the Half Dime Condition Census with one finer than this.

This is the third use of obverse 1 and the second use of reverse J. The obverse has a very heavy, nearly vertical die crack from the border to cap, through Y, and into the lower hair curls. Other cracks are visible through stars. The reverse has small die chips in N and M only.

This is the second finest of six examples in the JRCS Census. Discovered by Eric Gutscher in 1983, this variety was the subject of Russ Logan's first article in the John Reich Journal, Volume 1, Number 1:

A Second 1830 V-13 Half Dime

Most of us who collect early U.S. coins by die variety are acutely aware that undiscovered marriages not only exist but, occasionally, an alert can be sounded by noticing a Idie stateI that has not been recorded--pointing to a different striking and, possibly, a combination with a new die. Such was the case with the 1830 V-13 half dime discovered by a Michigan collector in March 1983. It is a muling of the V-9 obverse and the V-3 reverse. But it has a full cud from stars 5 and 6 to the rim! So big and obvious is the cud that the discoverer and the owner never bothered to mention any of the other die defects on the coin.

Consequently, for the past two years a lot of die variety collectors have been looking for an 1830 half dime with a huge cud between stars 5 and 6. However, known only to the owner, there are two additional almost "insignificant" die cracks on this obverse: one small crack extends from star 12 upwards toward star 11 and to the rim; the other extends from the back of Miss Liberty's cap above star to the rim. Both die cracks are small and rather insignificant when compared to the cud, but very important when trying to cherry pick another example.

The new specimen shows only the faintest die crack from star 5 to the rim. In fact, it is of the same magnitude as the 2nd and 3rd cracks previously described. So what does the second example tell us? A) A full cud may develop in a very short period of time. B) Small die cracks may be quite stable. Until more is known about the metallurgy and the practices of the early Mint, we are unable to predict the rarity of new discoveries based on die deterioration. What's important is that we describe a new variety by noting all of its diagnostic features as well as all die defects.