1803 Draped Bust Dime. JR-1. Rarity-6+. VF Details--Damaged (NCS).；The 1803 JR-1 is a formidable rarity among early dime varieties. Otherwise olive-gray surfaces exhibit splashes of warmer russet patina around some of the devices. The strike is well centered, although the denticles from 1 oclock to 6 oclock on the obverse have been lost to wear. Most of the major design elements are fully appreciable, and the surfaces are quite smooth relative to the stated qualifier. In fact, the only mentionable blemishes are a few stray nicks and pin scratches over and around the obverse portrait. After JR-5, JR-1 is the rarest variety of the 1803 Draped Bust dime. Only 15 or so examples have been confirmed, the finest of which are two EFs. Approximately three VFs are known, two of which were discovered in Florida in the early 1990s; this is one of those coins. With most examples of the 1803 JR-1 dime off the market in tightly held collections, the present offering represents an important bidding opportunity for variety specialists.
