Olive brown surfaces display navy blue and rich golden highlights as the cartwheel luster spins past, finding some distinctive rust-toned splashes at the lower obverse as it goes. Remarkable frost covers the surfaces and lends excellent aesthetic appeal to both sides. The fields show no substantial marks, just a little gathering of contact marks under the left side of the wreath bow. The reverse shows a significant wobble from proper coin turn, about 45 degree counterclockwise. The dies were also a bubble off plumb, axially misaligned enough to cause softness in the right stars and the letters of AMERICA opposite them. The central devices are very bold, despite the bold break across the portrait, reminiscent of the one that broke the portrait hub used on the obverses of 1809 Cohen-4 and Cohen-6. A crack joins stars 5 through 7 to the hair, first at the forecurl and then behind it. The crack that connected ITED to STATES is more subtle. Vestiges of die clashing remain at Libertys lips. This is a typical die state for 1810 half cents, which show little progression and are all lumped into a single die state by Manley. This best fits into Breens Die State IIIFinding a gem specimen of this date provides a sneaky challenge. There are only 32 Mint State citations on the PCGS Population Report, the same as the number of 1809 half cents in MS-63 alone. The Missouri Cabinet specimen is one of only two graded finer than this one.
