AboutMyCoinCheat sheet
Every date, variety and error in this series worth a second look. No prices: which of these are scarce has been settled for a century, and what they fetch is true for a week.
Dates and mint marks6
- 1928
- 1927
- 1927-S
- 1934
- 1921
- 1934-S
Read the date and the mint mark. No magnification, no judgement — either it says 1932-D or it does not.
Varieties3
- 1922 high relief
- 1934-D doubled die obverse
- 1935 doubled die reverse
Look at one specific feature under magnification and decide what you are seeing. Most candidates are not.
The series at a glance
- Struck
- 1921–1935
- Designer
- Anthony de Francisci
- Composition
- 90% silver, 10% copper
- Obverse
- Liberty facing left in a radiate crown
- Reverse
- An eagle at rest on a rock, holding an olive branch, with PEACE below
- Edge
- Reeded
Mints and mint marks
On the reverse, in the field to the left of the eagle, below the word ONE and near the tip of its wing. No mark at all means Philadelphia.
| Mint mark | Mint | Years | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| None | Philadelphia | 1921–1928, 1934–1935 | |
| D | Denver | 1922–1923, 1926–1927, 1934 | Five years only, and not the five a reader would guess |
| S | San Francisco | 1922–1928, 1934–1935 |
Key dates
These are the issues worth conspicuously more than the rest of the run, and every one of them is identified by reading the date and the mint mark rather than by judging the coin. Mintages are the mint’s own published figures. No prices: which dates are scarce has been settled for a century, and what they fetch is true for a week.
| Date | Mintage | Why it is scarce |
|---|---|---|
| 1928 | 360,649 | The lowest mintage of the series by a wide margin, and the only date that was recognised as scarce while the coins were still being struck, so more were saved than the figure alone suggests. |
| 1927 | 848,000 | The lowest Philadelphia mintage after the 1928, and one of the three consecutive years the whole series is scarce in. |
| 1927-S | 866,000 | Scarce as struck and scarcer well struck: San Francisco’s dies of these years left the hair over the ear soft on most of the coins. |
| 1934 | 954,057 | The lowest mintage of the two revival years, from a Philadelphia run that lasted a few weeks. |
| 1921 | 1,006,473 | The first year and the only one struck in high relief, which is a difference a reader can see across the room and which makes it the most asked-after date in the series. |
| 1934-S | 1,011,000 | Ordinary worn and the great rarity of the series with full lustre, because essentially the whole mintage was spent in the years after it was struck. |
Varieties
A variety is not a key date. A key date is read off the coin with no judgement at all; a variety asks you to look at one specific feature and decide what you are seeing, which is why each row below says what to look at rather than what to look for in general.
| Variety | What to look at |
|---|---|
| 1922 high relief | A 1922 whose whole design stands as high off the field as a 1921 does, struck from the tall dies before the relief was lowered.Almost every one was melted at the mint. One circulation strike and about a dozen matte proofs are known, against more than fifty million ordinary 1922 dollars, so a sharply struck 1922 is still an ordinary 1922 and this is a coin to have certified rather than identified. |
| 1934-D doubled die obverse | Doubling on IN GOD WE TRVST and on the letters of LIBERTY, with both images rounded and clearly separated.Machine doubling is flat and shelf-like, it is far commoner on this issue than the variety is, and the two are told apart under magnification rather than by eye. |
| 1935 doubled die reverse | Doubling on the rays below the eagle and on the letters of ONE DOLLAR, on a Philadelphia coin of the last year of the series.Several minor die pairings of this date carry light doubling that is not the listed variety; a strong, separated image on the rays is the one worth pursuing. |
Not an appraisal, and not an authentication. A coin worth four figures because of a variety or an error is worth certifying by a grading service before it is worth anything at all. Each one is a specialty with its own literature behind it.