First issued in 1837 with the last issue was 1891, they have undergone a number of changes. Variety 1-No Stars on Obverse 1837-1838 Variety 2-Stars on Obverse 1838-1853 Variety 3-Arrows at Date 1853-1855 Variety 2-Resumed With Weight Standard of Variety 1 1856-1860 Variety 4-Legend on Obverse 1860-1873 Variety 5-Arrows at Date 1873-1874 Variety 4-Resumed With Weight Standard of Variety 5 1875-1891 This is an 1891, the last year of issue. It’s 90% silver and 10% copper, with a Reeded edge. There were 15,310,000 produced, the highest mintage of the entire series. This coin has been placed in my circulated type set.
It takes a lot of coins to complete the Liberty Seated Type Set of half dimes, dimes, double-dime, quarters, half dollars and dollars. Here's my type set collection of LS dimes. My set includes 8 "types" because I consider the "no drapery" coin a separate type even though others don't. The beauty of type sets is you can include or exclude anything you want for whatever reasons make sense to you. Unless you're a registry set participant of course.
I had a seated dime, I suppose you could say I still have it but I lost it. It's not in good condition, but I still like it. Reading this post, I will admit I don't know a whole lot about these, and just wanted to have some seated coinage. Now i have one, or don't depending on how you'd consider a lost coin. I enjoyed comparing mine to yours and seeing just how variable this coin was.
I've defined the my Seated Liberty Dime Type Set as 8 coins... No Stars, No Drapery, 2.67g (1837-1838) Stars, No Drapery, 2.67g (1838-1841) Stars, Drapery, 2.67g (1840-1853) Stars, Drapery, 2.49g, Arrows, (1853-1855) Stars, Drapery, 2.49g, Arrows, (1856-1860) Legend, 2.49g, (1859, 1860-1873) Legend, 2.50g, Arrows, (1873-1874) Legend, 2.50g, Arrows, (1875-1891) The shield (tilted vs upright) and MM location (above vs below ribbon) also underwent changes, but I drew the line at the 8 coins listed above. I have 7 of the 8...
When I was a teenager (1959) I'd take a bus to downtown Houston each Sat. morning headed to Matulla Stamp & coin company. With my 5$ weekly allowance in hand I had to pass the display window of John's Stationery & Coin shop. His display that morning included a roll of shiny bright Unc. 1887 Seat liberty dimes. Being primarily a stamp collector at the time, those dimes lured me inside to ask the price. "$3.50 each and yours to pick". That morning I did not make it to Matullas as I spent the bulk of my allowance on this little jewel... Alas, now long gone. Wonder what I could have bought the entire roll for if I had had the $$$? J.T.
For me your post is a timely and welcome coincidence. Recently I've added Type and Variety fields to my homemade database and currently working on the Liberty Seated series for my custom type set. I still need a couple dimes, but here's what I've got so far (I made up my own variety numbers).
The No Stars design is my favorite because it's as close as I can get to my dream coin, the 1836 Gobrecht Dollar with the no stars obverse and the flying eagle & stars reverse.
Reasonable people can disagree on what constitutes a "type" and of course everyone is free to collect whatever and however they prefer. I generally like to impose some general principles upon myself if only to contain the chaos that can develop from collecting without guidelines. Herewith my general type set guidelines: 1) Generally follow Red Book type listings for U.S. coins 1792 to date with a wide degree of freedom to include more but drastically reduced freedom to collect less than what Red Book calls a type. 2) If it wasn't produced for use in commerce, it's excluded - with certain exceptions. 3) I include pre-federation and colonial coinage, whether minted in the colonies or not. If it circulated and was used for exchange, it's included. Thus, cobs, reales, English farthings, half and penneys, Rosas, Hibernias, etc are included as are a few examples of colonial currency and Revolutionary Confederation currency. 4) What is generally recognized as tokens is not included, although I recognize that colonial and pre-federation periods have circular metal objects that seem to inhabit a hybrid domain. 4) MMs do not constitute a type for the simple reason that the hubs/master dies and most of the working dies were produced by the Philadelphia mint thus defining the design type with the branch mints merely punching in the dates and MMs locally. Thus, the coin's designs were established at the Philly mint and the branches just made them custom to their location. But true to the principle of freedom-to-add, I have a 1878-CC dime in my type set just because I wanted a CC coin in the set. 5) I will use a proof IF the year of the proof also consists of business strikes and the proof's design type matches that of the business strike. Type sets are generally not about die varieties. 6) My type set includes pre-1933 gold but budget limitations restrict this part of the collection to post-1834, except for one 1811 half eagle that I just had to have! 5) No commemorative coins except the classics like Lafayette dollar, one half dollar and the Isabella. Haven't made up my mind yet about early commemorative gold. Again, freedom to add but not subtract. 6) Modern coins are only represented by one of the type, i.e. ATB quarters are represented by only one coin, state quarters are only represented by one coin. This is the way to include examples of these series while damping down the chaos of the modern mint and preserving storage space. I apologize for boring you to death. I just got typing and couldn't stop the logorrhea.
