Rare Dates and Die Varieties - Appraising Your Coin Collection

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Copyright 2015 by Kevin Flynn, All Rights Reserved

The objective of this section is to present the rarer and more valuable coins and die varieties for each series.

This section does not include any gold, commemorative, or some of the early series such as the Bust coinage. These coins are not normally found in most coins that are inherited and they are also easily identified in general books such as the Red Book.

The rare coins listed are not the only ones in a series that are valuable. Many coins are valuable in higher grades, which should encourage you to learn as much about grading as possible so that you can identify those coins worth more.

For the Rare Date section, the date and mint mark is first listed followed by the mintage struck for that year. This is followed by the value for some of the more common grades from Good (G4) up through mint state 65 (MS65). Use these values as a general reference, you can find actual prices realized in auction companies such as Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com). It is easy to use, free, and is a great resource for determining value as you can normally see the coin and compare to your own.

A die variety is something that is unique to the die that differentiaites it from other dies. All coins struck from the die will exhibit those charactistics unless they are removed. Die varieties include overdates, doubled dies, repunched dates, misplaced dates, repunched mint marks, over mint marks, clashed dies, and a few others.

The die varieties presented are some of the more dramatic for a series. There are sometimes hundreds of die varieties in a series, and also some that have yet to be identified. These varieties give an idea of what to look for and how to identify a particular type of variety. The best way to identify a particular variety that you might find in your collection is to obtain the reference book that covers the series.

For the Die Variety section, the date and type of variety is first presented followed by the values for particular grades. For some of these varieties, the one listed is the only variety of that type for a series. For example, in the Standing Liberty quarter series, there is only one known overdate. For other series, such as the Morgan Dollars, there are over twenty-five overdates known for 1880. To help understand how common some of these are, sometimes the total number is put in brackets "(25)". For many series, repunched dates are very common in a given year. For example, there are over thirty repunched dates known for the 1864 Two cent piece. One of these is extremely dramatic and worth far more than the others. This variety is listed as "1864 RPD" and a corresponding photo is presented to identify it.

Special coins are presented for some series that are significant and highly valuable. For example, the Mint changed from using 90% silver planchets for the dime, quarter, and half dollar in 1964 to a copper nickel clad planchet for the dime and quarter in 1965 and a 40% silver clad planchet for the the half dollar. Several left over 90% silver planchets were used to strike 1965 dated dimes, quarters, and half dollars and are highly sought after and valuable.

Rare Date and Die Variety Table of Contents

Previous: Examples of Error Coins
Next: Half Cent Rare Dates and Die Varieties
Copyright 2015 by Kevin Flynn, All Rights Reserved