Grading 1805 Dime

Piano1

I am rather new here and I wanted to respond to a question about how to grade an 1805 dime. Anyway, back in my younger days (I'm 72 now) I used to love determining varieties of older U.S. coins. Just for fun, I went downstairs to get my "Early United States Dimes" by Davis, Logan, Lovejoy, McCloskey, and Subjack for that purpose. The post to which I wanted to respond vanished. I can't seem to be able to locate it again.

Anyway, the 1805 dime is a Variety 1. This was easy as there were only 2 varieties in 1805. The obverse is the same for both varieties but variety 1 has (as I said to myself in not very technical lingo) the "the 2 T's in STATES are each directly over a fat cloud and the A between the 2 T's is where the 2 clouds join". I can't compare any other characteristics because that's when I lost the post.

This is the scarcer of the 2 varieties with a rarity of 3 being "Scarce" on a 1-8 scale.

There. now that I answered a question that wasn't asked, I'll try again to find the original post to use the PCGS online grading scale on it.

Piano1 Alan

Piano1

OOOOPs. I found the 1805 Dime post. So sorry about my earlier post on this topic.

Now, the grading. First, I would appreciate a comment on a statement that I was once told, (paraphrase) "it's not unusual for early U.S coins to have planchet defects". Of course in the really early large cents, this is pretty much a"given" but I wasn't so sure about dimes (such as the 1805 in the original post). Could this account for the pin pricks?

Grading; no expert here so I graded it comparing to my 1800 PCGS F-15. I am rather liking the mentioned F-12 designation. Decent coin with just a bit less obverse hair eagle feathers details remaining.

My apologies for my earlier mix-up.

Piano1

dsessom

Alan,

Welcome to the forum! No need to apologize. We all goof once in a while. You seem very knowledgeable. Are there any particular series of coinage that you are interested in?

johnny9434

I'm not sure but welcome to the forum

ricko

@Piano1 .... Welcome aboard Alan. I look forward to your contributions - based on what you wrote above, you seem quite experienced. Cheers, RickO

BillJones

With 1805 dimes, all you have to do is count the berries on the olive branch. The four berry is more common and far easier to find in high grades like AU-50 and above. The five berry is less common and much harder to find in high grade.

I have had a 4 berry example in my collection since the 1970s that is now in a PCGS AU-58 holder. I had one in a PCGS MS-62 holder when I was dealer. It was a little nicer, but I could not afford to keep it. And, yes, I am in my mid ‘70s.

Piano1

Hello, dsessom

Thank you for your kind welcome. May others have made me feel at home as well. I actually was a much more active member some years ago but I don't recall my sign-in information and we have moved. I would have liked "my old member information " back but I didn't know how to research it so I started a new account.

As far as my collecting interests, I guess I have 2 passions; early U.S.-type coins which I have collected for maybe 60 years or so but started much earlier as a 9-year-old kid in Miami, Florida. Gee, that must have been in the late 1950s. I'm OLD! Anyway, U'.S. coins from the late 1700s up through the 1800s are mainly where my passion lies.

My second passion is world coins featuring composers though I branched out to include performers, Opera, opera houses, National Anthems, music instruments, and other composer/music-related "themes". (Thus my Piano1 ID.) Lately, the market has been swamped with Music/Composer Coins, mostly LCLT. Some are very attractive...some, in my stodgy opinion, are not really worth acquiring. (Classically trained Pianist and composer here.)

Oh, as a third interest, I collect older coins from Peru. My wife and I worked in Southern Peru from 1975-1979 and I have a small collection of early pieces and I have worked on modern silver issues too.

I'm 72 years ancient! Between working, a kidney transplant, managing a condominium association board and giving private piano lessons, I was busy! Now being retired, I hope to come back to this board frequently. I have a zillion questions about coins I have acquired over the years for which I would value the opinions of the many kind and knowledgeable people here. I have had help here with coin photography but haven't been successful as yet. I don't know where I may refocus my collecting with prices being so high but I have time now. I hope to be able to help some collectors out there too in answering questions. We'll see where this goes.

Thanks and be well. Piano1 Alan

PeakRarities

@Piano1 said:
Hello, dsessom

Thank you for your kind welcome. May others have made me feel at home as well. I actually was a much more active member some years ago but I don't recall my sign-in information and we have moved. I would have liked "my old member information " back but I didn't know how to research it so I started a new account.

As far as my collecting interests, I guess I have 2 passions; early U.S.-type coins which I have collected for maybe 60 years or so but started much earlier as a 9-year-old kid in Miami, Florida. Gee, that must have been in the late 1950s. I'm OLD! Anyway, U'.S. coins from the late 1700s up through the 1800s are mainly where my passion lies.

My second passion is world coins featuring composers though I branched out to include performers, Opera, opera houses, National Anthems, music instruments, and other composer/music-related "themes". (Thus my Piano1 ID.) Lately, the market has been swamped with Music/Composer Coins, mostly LCLT. Some are very attractive...some, in my stodgy opinion, are not really worth acquiring. (Classically trained Pianist and composer here.)

Oh, as a third interest, I collect older coins from Peru. My wife and I worked in Southern Peru from 1975-1979 and I have a small collection of early pieces and I have worked on modern silver issues too.

I'm 72 years ancient! Between working, a kidney transplant, managing a condominium association board and giving private piano lessons, I was busy! Now being retired, I hope to come back to this board frequently. I have a zillion questions about coins I have acquired over the years for which I would value the opinions of the many kind and knowledgeable people here. I have had help here with coin photography but haven't been successful as yet. I don't know where I may refocus my collecting with prices being so high but I have time now. I hope to be able to help some collectors out there too in answering questions. We'll see where this goes.

Thanks and be well. Piano1 Alan

If you remember what your username was, and could tell me the time period that you recall being active, Ill help look for your old profile. Maybe if you recall a specific comment you made with a certain keyword in the thread title and search a time frame for threads with that word. The mods may be able to "put you back together"

Piano1

Hello again, dsessom.

I found "me" and my old username. I was MusicAL. I wrote about my "SEGS VF cleaned 1795 dollar" being determined to be counterfeit when I resubmitted to PCGS and I found an actual post from January 10th of 2015 about old ANACS slabs. Thanks for motivating me to try to find my old ID. I'll see if I can get "switched back" to the old ID, just for fun and sentiment.

Alan Piano1