By Dennis Hengeveld

Collecting seated coins can be fun, rewarding, and above all very challenging. Not many people can afford both the time and cost to search, find, and have the opportunity to buy the hard to find coins which are included in every seated series due to the many dates and mintmarks included in the series. Examples could be the 1878-S half dollar and various Carson City coins. These coins, “stoppers” as they are called, are expensive and very hard to find, often causing collectors to fail in their final goal of completing a series they have specialized in for a long time.

Although I love seated coins, as a 19 year old I just can’t afford to complete any of the seated series in the grades I like, mainly AU50 to MS64 or higher in as original condition as I can find them. Of course, I might be able to buy those coins later in my life but I am not really the person who has the patience to buy coins for a set I know won’t be complete within an acceptable period time (“acceptable” for me is 8-10 years).

As you might guess, I had to find a solution. So, after buying my first certified seated coin (and my first seated coin anyway), which happened to be a wonderful and very original PCGS MS64 1871 Half Dime, I decided to try a very complete type set, with every single type in there (including coins with different weights but the same design). After buying my second Half Dime (1843 PCGS MS63 which after studying proved to be V-6a, the well-known repunched date) before buying any other seated coin, I got hooked to that series.

Yet, I already knew that the series was not possible to complete in both the time period in those grades I had in mind. So I searched for other solutions, with one of them described in this article: collecting the date-set; each date just one time without paying attention to mint marks. This technique is affordable and possible to complete, even for me with a limited budget.

In this article, all seated series, with the exception of the 20-cent series and the Trade Dollar (a series I personally do not consider a real seated type coin), are discussed. The 20-cent series is relatively easy but not fun to complete with only two business strike dates. Thus, for now, it is not included in this article. I will shortly describe the coins in the set and the difficulty of completing a date-set. For the first series of the seated type, this article will start with the highest denomination in the series, the Silver Dollar. (more…)

And The Same Error in Two Other Denominations
By Rich Uhrich – January 2010 E-Gobrecht

I’ve always been intrigued by the 1849 Dramatically Doubled Date Half Dollar ever since I first saw it in The Complete Guide to Liberty Seated Half Dollars, by Randy Wiley and Bill Bugert, published in 1993.

Wiley and Bugert designate this coin as WB-102 and list its overall rarity as R6 (13 to 30 known). The original date was punched too far left, and much of it was effaced on the dies when the second date was punched in the proper position.

Therefore, on the coin we can see remnants of the bottoms of each of the 4 digits of the original date, to the left of the second date. There is also a remnant of a “9″ in the rock above the “49″, and also the loop of a “9″ in the denticles below the date. I always thought this was an unusuallooking variety and I purchased a VG coin from Jim O’Donnell at the 2000 ANA in Philadelphia.

I attended the 2005 EAC Convention in Annapolis, MD and I was studying an N-1 1847 Large Cent. This large cent has a doubled date with the original date to the left and the bottoms of all 4 digits clear. Sounds familiar! I immediately recognized that this was the same error as the 1849 Dramatically Doubled Date Half Dollar, so I immediately purchased the coin from its owner, Doug Bird.

According to Bob Grellman in The Die Varieties of United States Large Cents 1840 – 1857, the 1847 N-1 is an R2 variety. Subsequent research through the Grellman book resulted in identifying the 1846 N-4 (R1) and the 1848 N-4 (R4) as other examples of this error.

I didn’t think further about this connection until a few years later when I studied an 1848 Doubled Date Quarter that came in with a collection I purchased. This quarter has a doubled date with the original date to the left and the bottoms of all 4 digits clear. And it was obvious that this was the exact same error as occurred on as the 1849 Dramatically Doubled Date Half Dollar and the N-1 1847 Large Cent. (more…)

By Arno Safran  from The E-Gobrecht

During the mid to late 1830’s our coinage underwent a number of changes. The first of these began with modifications to the cent in 1835 and again in 1837. In 1836 silver dollar coinage was resumed. It portrayed a Liberty Seated figure with no stars on the obverse. The reverse depicted a soaring eagle in a sea of 26 stars. It was engraved by Christian Gobrecht.

In 1837 the Capped Bust dime and half-dime was replaced by the Liberty Seated no stars type and on the reverse the eagle was supplanted by a wreath. The diameter of the dime was reduced from 18.5 mm to 17.9 mm while the half dime remained the same. In 1838 the Liberty Seated (with 13 stars added) was placed on the quarter and in 1839 it was the half dollar’s turn.

The Gobrecht dollar also underwent further modifications in 1839. Finally, there were no less than five important modifications made to the Coronet type large cent in 1839. These have become popularRed Book varieties among cent enthusiasts.

The reader will observe that among the two sides of the basic 1839 year set shown and directly above there are two different types for the half dollar denomination; the outgoing Capped Bust-Reeded Edge and the new Liberty Seated types thereby continuing the annual parade of transitional date designtype pairings begun in 1837.
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