Lot 2219

Struck 5% Off-center at 1:00. Dentil tracks. Deeply toned and with some minor rim bruises. Dentil tracks are visible at back of the cap and below star 8.

The dies appear perfect.

Dentil tracks occur on a number of the half dollars and a few other coins in the Logan Collection.

Russ Logan felt that these represented double striking. Here in our offices, we were not sure just what to think, however, we did not feel that these were double struck coins. After considerable discussion, we were debating between some type of struck thru of foreign material, or some type of error akin to the dropped letter error. One concept was that some sort of foreign material, probably grease or a combination of grease and dirt, filled the dential area of a die and hardened. When this fell out and landing on top of a planchet below, or on top of the other die, it created a struck through leaving the impression of the dentils. Another suggestion was that a small planchet lamination occurred at the border of one coin, and this landed on the next planchet, leaving the impression of the dentils. This is much like the dropped letter error.

There were problems and questions regarding these two concepts. First, if grease or dirt filled the dentil area, shouldn't some examples of such varieties have weak or missing sections of dentils? This would be a concept similar to any filled die coin. The second concept about the planchet lamination leads us to ask: why always the dentils and not some other portion of the design?

After all this consideration, we pulled the triple struck 1824 O-115 out of the envelope and took one look at the massive rows of dentils on the obverse, along with all the other details of the triple strike. This helps us to believe that perhaps these do represent some sort of double or triple striking. But how? Why do so many of these only show the extra dentils and no other details from another strike? For now, we are going to follow Russ Logan's lead. We will describe such coins as having Dentil Tracks and let the students of these coins answer our questions.

These half dollars with the "Dentil Tracks" certainly require further research for other possible explanations.