I just pick up a 1860 half Dime what does BREEN-3099 mean?
Type2
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Can some one tell me what BREEN-3099 is, I dont collect them but I am going to start Thanks in advance. 
Hoard the keys.
0
Type2
Posts: 13,985 ✭✭✭✭✭
Hoard the keys.
Comments
1860 Plainly repunched 1 0 Rare.
Date logotype entered twice, first slanting up to r., then corrected level. Doubling plain at 1 0. Valentine 4; Neil 3, Neil, 1967. Discovered by W. W. Neil before 1927, Numisma 5/57:279; Rhodes: 556. Later states with repunching faded off 1 price as preceding.
Hope this helps!
Steve
Edited to add... beaten to the post while typing leave a double post.
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<< <i>It is the Breen variety no. assigned to the variety from the Breen coin encyclopedia. Sort of like the Overton # for bust halves. >>
except WAY LESS authoritative. WAY LESS.
Hoard the keys.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
In this specific case, although two respondents have accurately quoted what Breen published in his encyclopedia for his B-3099:
"Date logotype entered twice, first slanting up to r., then corrected level. Doubling plain at 1 0. Valentine 4; Neil 3, Neil, 1967. Discovered by W. W. Neil before 1927, Numisma 5/57:279; Rhodes: 556. Later states with repunching faded off 1 price as preceding."
...a quick check of the Valentine reference reveals that there is no such thing as a Valentine 4 for 1860!! He numbers only three die marriages for 1860, the V1, V2, and V3. Apparently this is a misprint, and Breen meant to write V3, which is described in the Valentine reference, although without any mention of the repunched date! Al Blythe, in his "Complete Guide to Liberty Seated Half Dimes" correctly designates the Valentine V3 as a repunched date, properly designated as 1860/1860, although he shows this only as the V3b die state. Of course, this would not make any sense, as the strongest evidence of the repunching would be on the earliest, or prime, die state, or the V3. Later die states would show successively weaker evidence of the repunched date as the dies wore from repeated use.
Al Blythe describes the successive die states V3a, V3b, and V3c in some detail, but implies that the date position is different for each, which would describe different dies, and not just different die states. We have now properly designated the Valentine V3 as the repunched date variety, properly designated as "1860/1860". During this period of the Philadelphia Mint, a four digit gang punch was being used, which allowed all four digits of the date to be punched into the working dies in one motion, as opposed to the previous method of punching the date numerals one at a time. In this case (1860 V3), the four digit gang punch was first punched into the exergue with the date rotated slightly counterclockwise, and the die sinker 'corrected' the date by punching it once again with the gang punch rotated slightly clockwise. The resulting doubled date shows evidence of the first-punched 1 below the base of the final 1, and evidence of the first punched 0 above the final 0.
In the last (2005) Liberty Seated Collectors Club half dime census survey there were a total of twenty-two (22) examples of the 1860/1860 V3 reported, with just five (5) in mint state, eight (8) in AU, and six (6) in EF grade. My own reference collection includes four examples in AU, and one in VF.
It is no wonder, then, that collectors might be confused by such a listing for this spectacular repunched date, frequently improperly identified in the available literature.