Classic Half Eagle Varieties

描述: Daryl J. Haynor's excellent book Classic Gold Coins of 1834-1839 rekindled my interest in this short series,
including the nuances of the 34 different die pairings. The variations between dies can be quite significant.

Initially I thought it would be interesting to collect examples of 2-3 pairs for each date.
Later on I decided I would try for one example of each of the 17 reverse dies.
At this point, with 30 of the 34 pairs, I'm in for the long haul.

Classic Half Eagle die pair counts by date:
1834 - 9 (includes HM-9 - Crosslet 4 - only the 4th-rarest 1834 variety).
1835 - 8.
1836 - 9.
1837 - 3.
1838 - 2.
1838-C - 2.
1838-D - 1.

The HM-# numbering of die pairs used in Haynor's book builds on the work of John McCloskey.
HM numbers are year-dependent. For example, every year has an HM-1 pair, so the HM number by itself is meaningless.

Individual obverse dies are identified by number as they were of course only used for one date.
Individual reverse dies are identified by letter. 6 of the 17 reverse dies were used for multiple years.

1834 HM-1, for instance, is the pairing of 1834 Obverse 1 and Reverse A. Obverse 1 was used only in this pairing.
Reverse A was the champion of reuse, appearing in 7 die pairs over 3 years from 1834-1836.

Some varieties are quite rare, as might be expected in early 19th-century coinage.
The 1836 HM-9, the only 1836 with a Script 8, is thought to be the rarest with only about 10 coins known.
The 1835 HM-5, an example of which is in this set, is believed to be second-rarest with perhaps 15 survivors.
In addition to these two, there are six other varieties with estimated populations of 20-40 each.