Seated Liberty Half Dimes 1837-1873

The seated figure of Liberty that Christian Gobrecht engraved from drawings by Thomas Sully and Titian Peale first appeared on the silver dollars of 1836, which few people saw. Most Americans met it on the dimes and half dimes of 1837. Philadelphia struck its first Seated half dimes on July 25, 1837, with no stars on the obverse. New Orleans received the same starless dies and kept using them for its first half dimes, dated 1838, while Philadelphia moved on.

Philadelphia's 1838 half dimes added thirteen stars, punched by hand into each die because the master hub did not yet carry them. In 1840 a revised figure with a fold of drapery under Liberty's left elbow replaced Gobrecht's original, and both Philadelphia and New Orleans struck the old and new designs that year.

When the California gold rush lowered the value of gold against silver, silver coins became worth more than face value and disappeared into hoards. The Act of February 21, 1853 cut the weight of the half dime and the larger silver coins by about seven percent, and arrowheads beside the date marked the lighter pieces through 1855. Philadelphia struck more than 13 million half dimes at the new weight in 1853 alone. Large mintages continued while Mint Director James Ross Snowden paid out small silver coins for bullion deposits, a policy the Treasury stopped late in the decade.

For 1859 alone, Philadelphia used a new obverse by assistant engraver Anthony C. Paquet, with a slimmer Liberty, a more curved LIBERTY ribbon and stars with hollow centers. New Orleans kept the older figure. In 1860 a larger wreath of cereal grains and leaves left no room for the legend on the reverse, so UNITED STATES OF AMERICA moved to the obverse in place of the stars. That change is credited to Chief Engraver James B. Longacre. New Orleans struck its last half dimes in 1860, and San Francisco began in 1863.

Civil War hoarding kept Philadelphia's circulation strikes small from 1863 through 1867. Congress authorized a copper-nickel five-cent piece in May 1866, and the two coins circulated together until the Mint Act of 1873 abolished the half dime. The last were struck early in 1873.

Obverse. Liberty sits on a rock, her right hand on a shield inscribed LIBERTY and her left holding a pole topped with a liberty cap. The date is below.

Reverse. Through 1859, HALF DIME sits inside a laurel wreath, with UNITED STATES OF AMERICA around the edge. From 1860, a larger wreath of corn, wheat, maple and oak leaves surrounds HALF DIME and the legend is gone from this side.

Mint mark. On the reverse. From 1838 to 1859 the O sits inside the wreath, under DIME and above the bow. On the legend type it moved below the bow, near the rim. San Francisco moved it back inside the wreath on the 1870-S and 1871-S, and 1872-S half dimes are found with the S in either position. Philadelphia half dimes have none.

Telling the types apart:

Unlike the dime, the half dime never received the 1873 weight change or a second arrows type, since it was abolished that year.

Mintages below are the figures NGC or USA Coin Book give for each issue.

• 1870-S: one known. San Francisco left no record of striking half dimes in 1870, though it received six pairs of dies in December 1869, and the coin only came to light in 1978.
• 1846: 27,000 struck.
• 1838-O No Stars: 70,000 struck from New Orleans's original starless dies, possibly spread over 1838 and 1839.
• Civil War and postwar Philadelphia issues: business strikes of 1863 (18,000), 1864 (48,000), 1865 (13,000), 1866 (10,000) and 1867 (8,000). The 1867 was thought to exist only as a proof until uncirculated business strikes turned up in the 1950s.
• 1853 No Arrows: Philadelphia (135,000) and New Orleans (160,000) struck these at the old weight before the February law. Many unreleased pieces were melted.
• 1840-O With Drapery: 240,000 struck with the new design. New Orleans also struck 1840-O No Drapery coins, and NGC notes a transitional pairing of the No Drapery obverse with the new Open Bud reverse.
• 1859 Philadelphia: 340,000 struck with Paquet's one-year obverse.
• Transitional patterns: 1859 (J-232), about a dozen known, and 1860 (J-267), reportedly 100 struck. Both pair the stars obverse with the 1860 reverse and carry no country name.
• 1872-S mint mark above the bow and below the bow: 837,000 1872-S half dimes were struck in all, and the split between the two positions was never recorded.
• 1838 Small Stars: NGC describes it as a late state of a normal die whose stars were made shallow when the die was refinished after a clash.
• 1848 Large Date: the date was punched with the larger dime logotype and runs into Liberty's base.
• 1849 overdates: the 9 over 6 and 9 over widely placed 6. The underlying digits are disputed: NGC attributes these as repunched dates, while Wexler lists one die as 1849/1848 (FS-H10-1849-303).
• 1858 Over Inverted Date: the four-digit date punch was first struck upside down and then corrected (FS-302).
• 1839-O and 1840-O Large O: some New Orleans reverses carry a large O left over from the 1838 dies.
• 1861/0: long called an overdate, it is now thought to come from a damaged date punch, and NGC no longer attributes it.

Die marriages for this series are still cited by the V-numbers in Daniel W. Valentine's The United States Half Dimes, published by the American Numismatic Society in 1931, the first full study of Seated half dime die varieties.

• Composition: 90% silver, 10% copper throughout
• Weight and silver content:
  • 1837 to early 1853 (no arrows): 1.34 g, holding 0.0388 troy oz of silver
  • 1853 (with arrows) to 1873: 1.24 g, holding 0.0359 troy oz
• Diameter: 15.5 mm
• Edge: reeded