The Capped Bust Half Dollar 1807-1839

[JRocco]

Hey Stef,
As you know, I like this series a lot.
Here is really cool variety.
This coin was minted during a pretty tumultuous time in our history, 1812. This is the 1812 Overton 109a variety. Aside from a few minor oddities, this die suffered a very dramatic twist of fate. Apparently, as is most popularly believed, a large part of the screw press- one of the screws- broke off and fell between the dies during the striking of one of the coins between the prime state and this "a" state and resulted in some pretty dramatic damage to the die, most notably the reverse die.

In fact, if you look closely enough, you can see the screw threads as well as the screw bolt top damage on the resulting coins struck by this die pair. The die was later lapped or heavily polished to completely clean off the damaged area, but not before 3 strong individual die clashes occurred each one after the dies rotated and became more and more misaligned. Look at the area under the right (facing) wing and you can see 3 clean imprints of the letters R, T and Y from the obverse LIBERTY, all in upside down reversed fashion of course.
Another mystery is what the cause of this large round lump to the left of star 10 is and why it wasn't lapped off as it is seen on most coins from this die marriage even after "work" was done to the dies.
This one is just plain fun.

[rrantique]

Wow JRocco, great stuff.........keep em coming  

[JRocco]

Thanks Irvin,
Here is a really cool CBH.
This is an overdate described as an 1824/2/0, but no one really knows for sure how many "oops" happened. It is also described in many texts as an 1824/Various.
This variety is also known for a very strong reverse strike. Look at this detail for a coin minted in 1824 on a screw press no less.
This is in an old slab that has a lot of cloudiness in the plastic - sorry.

[JRocco]

Many people talk about wanting original skin on a coin and immediately think wild rainbow colors spanning the ROYGBIV spectrum...iridescent pastels...deep blues and greens... well, for the most part they are completely wrong. Here is a nice coin, an 1819/8  Overton # 101 overstrike that shows some hints of nice originality. I LOVE this look on a nice classic coin. This is in high AU top TPG plastic so I guess they like this look also

[JRocco]

There were several design changes in the CBH series, many involved the portrait of LIBERTY, but one major die change involved the bird on the reverse. The first 2 years of the series, 1807 and 1808 featured a very different bird design than is seen in the rest of the series. I think the early design shows a much more visually powerful bird, more proportionate and more muscular. A strong representation of our nations power and might. Unfortunately, the design was very tough with the early screw presses and resulted in very poor metal flow presenting itself as a weak strike commonly seen on the 1807 and 1808 coins as well as other die problems. The reverse die was drastically modified as one step to help with the problem. On the new design the shield is now wider, the birds feathers and talons have been changed, the arrowheads are larger and the arrow feathers have been moved. The period after UNUM has also been eliminated as well as other modifications.  Here is a side by side showing the 2 designs. An 1808 reverse design on the left and the above 1824 reverse shown on the right. I will show a full pic of the 1808 below. Notice any obverse die changes?

[coinsarefun]

jRocco, you have quite an extensive collection and up until your posts I never really considered the Capped Bust Half dollars. You have given some great information on this thread and I now know why it is so widely collected.
Great job

[rrantique]

 

[rrantique]

[JRocco]

Hey Irvin,
Thanks for adding some of your coins to this thread.
Many of the toned CBH's that we see are coins that have been dipped and have re-toned either in albums or in coin envelopes. A smaller percentage have re-toned in coin cases, many times displaying as one sided toners because these cases were felt lined and unless the coins were rotated only one side was exposed to the air. Here is a coin that was dipped and has re-toned. This is, or for years has been an acceptable form of toning as these coins have been around for between 175 and 200 years and while many claim their coins have original skin - they don't. This one is in AU55 top plastic so the toning is acceptable. Looking closer at the toning progression you can see that this coin went through the early stages of toning and it is in a better phase at this time. The earlier stages of album toning show that less desirable...to me at least...blue rim toning with a bright white center. This is the look I like in a re-toned, album toned CBH.

[rrantique]

I agree  J thanks .