1825 B-2 Bust Quarter G-T-G : 200 Year Anniversary

With the end of the year approaching, it's time to revisit the the 200th anniversary of Browning bust quarter varieties for this year.  I figured I'd wait until after the sale of the bust quarters in the Northeast Collection in June and the Steve Tompkins Collection in August.

The 1825 Browning-2 variety is called R-2 in both the Rea/Peterson/Karoleff/Kovach book on bust quarters, and the Steve Tompkins book. The B-2 die marriage can be found in most grades and many die stages.  The Tompkins book notes the obverse has a dentil count of 125, the reverse has a dentil count of 122, the edge reed count is 108 (reverse dentil count is 124 on the B-1, the only difference). The Tompkins book notes at least 2 known proofs for the variety.

The obverse die for the 1825 B-2 marriage is used for both the 1825 B-2 and B-3.  The reverse die was only used for striking the 1825 B-2 die marriage and is popular among collectors for the die stages of the retained cud that forms around the arrowheads on the reverse. The late die stage is somewhat controversial, hinging on whether you believe there are full cud examples or not. Tompkins notes that things seem to point to the reverse being the anvil die, such that the collar would have held the broken piece of the die in place and not fall out as coins were being struck.

I'll post two of my four examples since they are the only ones I have pictures of at this time (Phil Arnold Trueviews). Feel free to try and guess grades if you'd like, and I will reveal them Wednesday evening. Comments are always welcome, and of course if you have any 1825 B-2's, please post pictures of any die stages you might have.

1TwoBits