1866 - 3 Cent Nickel - Interesting reverse
redraider
Posts: 230 ✭✭✭✭✭
The ribbon on the bottom of the reverse is almost completely polished into the field. I have seen polishing eliminate some of designs before, but this seemed more dramatic than anything else I have seen. Also a huge clash on the obverse!
Thoughts on the grade?
7
Comments
Neat clash!
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Pretty coin. That must have been a major clash to do that much die polish on it.
Wild Clash! Ribbon is totally interesting.
Jim
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Congrats! I am a big collector on error coins. One of the most clashed coins I have seen in a long time>
The more I looked at it and compared to other examples, the more dramatic this is appearing. There are leaves missing on the wreath as well!
Also interesting, all the detail on the III is there. All the vertical lines are present, which tells me this is an "earlier" die state.
Wow, what a clash!! From those pics I don't think that could possibly grade any lower than MS64 and probably more but this is not a series I'm very familiar with so could be wrong...
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The Mint's previous experience with Copper-Nickel alloys was the 88-12 Flying Eagle / Indian Head Cents (up to 1864).
The 75-25 of the standard Nickel is much harder.
A hypothesis is they had the dies smacking the planchets with much more force than previously - dies cracking if there is a planchet, clashes if there isn't...
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Nice looking 3 cent. I would say probably a 65 if its got luster.
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It is indeed a cool clash, along with 4 die cracks on the reverse.
Clashing and cracks are quite normal on the 1866 dies.
I actually studied the 1866 3CN die marriages a few years ago, and your coin is an example of B15a.
Here is an MS-66 example, photos by Stacks-Bowers Galleries.
It is not rare; I found several examples.
You wondered how rare the partial left ribbon is.
On the first 20 die marriages, 5 of them have partial left ribbons like this.
So it is fairly common on the 1866 3CN.
I don't know if it is die lapping or perhaps the reverse hub was pressed into the die at a slight angle
which makes the bottom of the reverse missing some details relative to the top.
Incidentally, I identified 81 different die pairs, of which 52 had at least 2 example coins,
and 29 had a single example coin.
And there are linkages where an obverse was paired with more than one reverse.
Very nice coin and great die clash. Great analytical work above by @yosclimber. Cheers, RickO
Thanks Yosclimber!! Great research!