Mintage: 2,940,000.

Date Acquired: 15 December 2005. Originally in an NGC slab graded AU-50; "liberated" on 21 January 2006.

Variety: F-114, and a discovery coin for this variety.

About This Coin: I happened to stumble on this in the first-ever Teletrade Express auction on December 15, 2005. I almost immediately noticed the lack of a right arrow (actually just very faint). I knew of the F-106 variety (also identified as Greer-102) and its rarity, so I compared the closeups of F-106 to this one and examined the positioning of the digits and arrows, and came to the conclusion that this coin was almost certainly struck from the same obverse die as the very rare F-106 variety, even though the left arrow is bold. This was clearly an unlisted variety I had to have. Receiving and examining the coin confirmed that it's unquestionably the same obverse die used with F-106, but with a bold left arrow and a barely visible right arrow.

This coin uses a different reverse than F-106, though.  There is doubling (probably machine doubling) on the left side of the wreath from 7:00 to 10:00 on the reverse, and there are a couple of die cracks.  None of these are present on the three known examples of F-106, which have "perfect" reverse dies. I sent this coin to Gerry Fortin in May 2006 while he had an extended vacation from his assignment in China, and he assigned a new variety to this coin as F-114, with the same obverse die as F-106 but in an earlier die state.

Fortin's conclusion was that the entire date and arrows were "ganged" together as a (presumably failed) experiment in punching the arrows and the date together at once, since this coin (F-114) shows a consistent redeuction in boldness from left to right. Perhaps F-106 either had the left arrow polished or suffered from a filled die which obscured the left arrow as well. Gerry gave this coin an initial rarity estimate of "R6+" in VF or higher, which likely meant an estimated 10-20 in existence. A handful of other specimens have come to light since then, and he has downgraded the estimate to R5+ (perhaps 30-40). To date this is the highest-grade example I've seen.

I'm just psyched that I managed to cherrypick a discovery coin!

seated dime home here!

Most recently updated: 22 February 2008

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