“Scarcest Variety of all 1834s. Struck in 1836 (!).” — Edgar E. Souders, The Top 100 R4 and R5 Capped Bust Half Dollar Varieties & Sub-Varieties, 2002 The opalescent gray obverse glows with luster amidst a blend of amber and pale violet, while the reverse is a deeper mellow violet with orange gold at center and variegated pastels inside the rims. Beautifully lustrous and full of aesthetic appeal, this frosty gem is well struck and well preserved. All stars but star 8 show full central detail, and the wealth of fine detail on the portrait of Liberty surpasses even most well-struck examples of this date. The late die state of the reverse has sacrificed some detail among the olive leaves and denticles, but all other design elements remain crisp. A notable die crack arcs across the reverse, starting small at the intersection of the arrow shafts and talon at right, up the length of the wing at right to the upper right corner of the motto banner, bouncing off the top of the motto at RIB of PLURIBUS and arcing again through the centers of UNITED and across the wingtip at left and the olive leaves until disappearing below the shield. The fields are pristine but for a single minor vertical abrasion under the wing at left. A light natural planchet fissure hides near the rim left of the first S of STATES. Among the most fascinating aspects of numismatics is the ability to carefully and objectively study coins as mass-produced creations of a mechanical process, to order them and decipher their secrets. Identification of individual dies was an initial step, and study of die states allowed careful students to create an emission sequence based upon die breaks and progressive fatigue. This sort of examination revealed that the reverse of this coin, Overton’s 1834 Reverse J, was also used on coins dated 1836, there called 1836 Reverse C. Not only was the same die used on coins dated both 1834 and 1836, but the die was newer when it was used to strike 1836 O-104. The logical conclusion of this information is that this variety, 1834 O-110, was actually struck in 1836. Interesting enough to stand on its own, that tidbit allows numismatists to derive even more facts about this issue, including the realization that the published mintage figures for 1834 actually underestimate how many 1834-dated half dollars were coined. Ivan Leaman and Donald Gunnet found another way to prove this in “Early Half Dollar Edges and Die Sequences,” an important and innovative paper presented at the American Numismatic Society’s 1986 Coinage of the Americas Conference. Leaman and Gunnet made an exacting examination of edge dies, a study that would be much more difficult in the age of certification, and determined which varieties shared edge dies in common. They discovered that 1834 O-110 was struck on planchets edged with two different sets of edge dies. Their Edge 13 was used on O-105, O-103, O-104, O-123, and O-117 of 1836 before its appearance on 1834 O-110. Edge 14 was used first on 1834 O-110 and subsequently on O-121, O-120, and O-117 of 1836. These two forms of data, die state analysis and edge analysis, prove conclusively that 1834 O-110 was struck in 1836. On this coin, its revealing edge was incorrectly applied, rendering the edge legend as FIFTY CENTS HORALF A DOLLAR. The last of the Pogue Collection Capped Bust half dollars with provenance to the Eliasberg Collection, this coin is an aesthetic treat. Thirteen different die varieties comprise the 1834 Small Date, Small Letters type, but none is as scarce as this one. Despite its comparative rarity, this coin ranks as the second finest example of this major variety certified by PCGS. No example graded finer by PCGS has ever sold at auction. PCGS# 39914. NGC ID: 24FY.
