 1798/7 JR-1 (R-3). 16 Star Reverse. Small '8'. About Uncirculated. Obverse type: Liberty's draped bust facing right. LIBERTY above, 1798/7 below. Small '8' in date. 13 stars around. Reverse type: Heraldic eagle derived from the Great Seal of the United States of America. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA around. 16 stars above eagle's head. Attractive, light silver gray on the obverse and reverse. The stars on the obverse and the periphery around the reverse show a little deeper coin silver gray toning. The surfaces are smooth and hard, and the obverse strike is about as sharp as these usually get. This may have been the first Dime variety struck in 1798.
The Mint employed an obverse originally cut for the 1797 production but one that was never used in that year. To accommodate the changed year, a small '8' was punched directly over the original, underlying second '7' to create the 1798/7 overdate. The reverse die had previously been used to strike the Breen 1 1797 Quarter Eagles before being pressed into service for the following year's Dimes. The interchangeable size between the Dime and Quarter Eagle denominations was not accidental. The Mint deliberately decided to make them essentially the same size to take advantage of the fact that the reverse types of the two denominations were identical at this time.
The concept of having the same types appear on more than one denomination, the distinctions among them being made by metal composition and weight, was common in England and France at the time. It had first been tried here in America in 1783 by Robert Morris and William Dudley when they made the 1783 Nova Constellatio pattern coins for the newly independent United States. Benjamin Franklin's 1776 Continental Dollars, struck in silver, brass and pewter were an even earlier example but these were semi-official coins.
Engraver: Robert Scot
Statutory Weight: 2.70 grams
Statutory Size: 19 millimeters
Mintage: 27,550
Ex Stack's privately in April 1978.
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