1856 S3 FE question to ponder.....why would

Lakesammman

Why would a coin that had a production run of only a few hundred coins have early, intermediate and late die states???? The average CN FE obverse die lasted 100,000 coins or more.....do you have any theories?? Any comparable situation in other series??

lathmach

This may help you

Ray

Pushkin

One possibility may be that the dies and hubs were not fully hardened? At least according to this article on some pattern quarters.

Pattern_Dies

coppercoins

Very interesting information, thanks for the post.

Pushkin

Here is some additional information on hardening and annealing. My first quess would be that the pattern dies were made of soft steel, steel that had not been hardened. - But, its just a quess. Soft steel doesn't last very long when used for dies.

Hardening and Annealing

Interesting question.

Lakesammman

Pushkin:

Great info - I suspected that since they didn't plan a full "run", corners were cut in the die production...what you've provided supports that guess. Thanks for the great info!!!!!!!!

jdimmick

Thanks for that info, especially on the S-3.

I just recently picked up John's PCGS-VF-25 (S-3) and was pleased to finally own one, and wanted to know a little more about the significance of the S-3 die pairing.

Lakesammman

Here's the coin that piqued my interest in the above. I'm not sure where it fits in the over-all scheme of things but it's fun to think about....the "smile" below the eagle is a planchet "crevice", die polish lines passing through it uninterrupted....same for the smaller crevice below the talons and above the tail..... aren't FE's great!





PS - edited to say, the die crack below the "1" is the late-die state diagnostic, visible in the photo.

Pushkin

Yes, FEs are great. My current dream coin is an 1858 Small Eagle "chicken eagle" J-204 or J-205 (ornamented shield reverse). I know somebody's dynamic signature on this thread displays the obverse.