Richard Meaney wrote:
Last week, I mentioned that I had an interesting 1837 capped bust half dime. I now have the images (below). Here’s how this coin came to me. I was sitting at the table of David Perkins at the ANA show and Liz Coggan walked up. She had a CACG 1837 and asked, “have you seen anything like this before, I’d like to get your thoughts.” A collector and I examined the coin and saw something odd. Under and sort of attached to the underside of Miss Liberty’s nose was a raised semicircle and it did not appear to be there because of damage. There were some odd, but not unique characteristics on the reverse too, but I think I have seen similar on the reverse of other coins albeit infrequently at best.
I ended up buying this coin from Liz the next day (she’s the proprietor at Elizabeth Coggan Numismatics, www.lizcoggan.com) and I promised her she would get credit for finding/discovering this neat coin. I shared the coin with at least half a dozen other collectors to get opinions on what caused this feature on the coin. These collectors had the opportunity to view the coin in hand and hold it at various angles to get a better view. One collector said we should call this the “nose ring variety.” The images provided are straight-on images and won’t provide the advantage that in-hand views do, but take a look. You may be able to enlarge these images by clicking on them.
What do you think?
