Christian Gobrecht designed the Seated Liberty half dollar.
The obverse of the Seated Liberty half dollar depicts Liberty
seated looking over her shoulder to the left. She balances
the Union Shield inscribed LIBERTY with her right hand and
holds a staff on which is placed a Phrygian cap in her left.
There are seven stars to the left and six to the right interrupted
by her head and the capped pole. The dated is below. The
reverse shows the heraldic eagle looking left. It is surrounded
by the required inscription and the denomination written
as HALF DOL. below. Dentils are around the periphery of
both sides of the Seated Liberty half dollar.
There were five varieties of the Seated Liberty half dollar.
Type 1, 1839-1853 and 1856-1866 (resumed with weight standard
of Type 2) has no motto above the eagle. It weighed 13.36
grams. Type 2, 1853, added rays around the eagle to indicate
the change in weight to 12.44 grams. Type 3, 1854-1855,
had the rays removed but arrows added to each side of the
date. The weight remained the same. Type 4, 1866-1873 and
1875-1891 (resumed with weight standard of Type 5) had the
motto IN GOD WE TRUST added to a banner above the eagle.
The arrows at the date were removed. Type 5, 1873-1874,
had the arrows at the date added back to show the change
in weight to 12.50 grams.
There were also several varieties of the Seated Liberty
half dollar. In 1839 the drapery was modified to cover more
of Liberty’s left arm. The varieties are No Drapery
and Drapery. Both Small and Medium letters are found for
the 1840 issue. The next Red Book variety was made in 1842.
There were Small Date and Small Letters and Small Date with
Large Letters. The New Orleans Mint for that year made a
Small Date with Small Letters also and a Medium date with
Large letters. A doubled date is found in 1844-O. Excessive
die polishing caused the 1845-O to have Drapery and No Drapery.
The Philadelphia issues of 1846 had a Medium Date, a Tall
Date, and a 6 over a Horizontal 6. Medium and Tall dates
are found for 1846-O, and 1847 has a 7 over 6 overdate.
A very rare 1853-O Type 1 (no arrows) exists. Only 3 specimens
are known. An overdate was made in 1855 that shows the numerals
854 under the normal date. In 1861 the New Orleans Mint
used a federal die obverse and a CSA reverse to strike a
few CSA half dollars. This same obverse die was also paired
with a regular federal reverse to strike some 1861-O half
dollars. They can be identified by a die crack that runs
from to the right of the sixth star down to Liberty’s
nose and shoulder. Both the No Motto and With Motto coins
were made in San Francisco in 1866. The new dies that had
the With Motto reverse did not arrive in time so an older
die was used in the first group of coins struck for that
year. Close and Open 3’s were found in 1873. Carson
City and San Francisco made both Type 4 and 5 coins for
that year. Another overdate was made in 1877 with a 7 seen
over a 6. Just the top portion of the 6 is visible over
the upper part of the last 7.
Mintages of the Seated Liberty half dollar range from a
low of 4,400 in both 1882 and 1884 to a high of 8,418,000
in 1876. Mint records show a No Arrows half dollar for 1873-S
with a mintage of 5,000; however, none are known to exist
today.
Look for the rare
1846/5 overdate. Date sizes vary and one interesting variety
had the 6 of the date punched into the die horizontally,
then corrected.
Some of
these were struck under the auspices of the Confederacy
using U.S. dies - unfortunately, there's no way
to tell them apart. The extremely rare Confederate
Half Dollars and the more common Restrikes were
separate issues that still deserve mention here.
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