NGC Recognizes Top 100 Liberty Seated Dime Varieties

Numismatic Guaranty Corporation® (NGC®) has announced that it will now attribute Liberty Seated Dime varieties listed in the “Top 100 Liberty Seated Dime Varieties” online reference by collector and researcher Gerry Fortin. The varieties will be attributed on the NGC certification label with an “F” number under NGC’s VarietyPlus® service.

First issued in 1837, the Liberty Seated Dime series spanned a remarkable 55 years, a period during which the dime was a crucial coin in American commerce. To meet the public’s demand for the denomination enormous quantities were struck, which inevitably resulted in a significant number of variations, including doubled dies, repunched dates, misplaced digits and other varieties.

As collector interest in Liberty Seated coinage grew in the early 1970s, efforts were made to catalog the numerous die varieties found in the series. Liberty Seated Dime die variety discoveries were published in the newsletter of the Liberty Seated Collector’s Club, Kamal Ahwash’s 1977 Encyclopedia of United States Liberty Seated Dimes, and the 1991 publication of Brian Greer’s The Complete Guide to Liberty Seated Dimes.

1838 Large Stars 10C Top 100 F-106 Obverse Die crack Click images to enlarge.

A comprehensive list of Liberty Seated Dime varieties, however, did not exist until the launch of Fortin’s website, www.SeatedDimeVarieties.com, in 2004. The detailed eBook lists all known die varieties and die states with rarity estimates and high resolution photographs.

1838 Partial Drapery 10C Top 100 F-108a RPD & Reverse Die Clash Click images to enlarge.

The most popular feature of the site is the “Top 100 Liberty Seated Dime Varieties,” which over the last decade has served to greatly expand collector interest in the series’ most important varieties. Responding to the demand for greater recognition from collectors and dealers, NGC will now recognize these varieties on its certification label.

A complete list of eligible varieties will be posted to the VarietyPlus section of the NGC website, www.NGCcoin.com. To submit coins for attribution with the Top 100 variety, check VarietyPlus on the NGC submission form.

NGC will soon launch a new competitive NGC Registry set category for the Top 100 Liberty Seated Dime die varieties.