Wednesday, January 15, 2014

What in the world is a Capped Bust Design on United States coins?



When I was younger, I was at a local coin show and I heard a dealer say, “Yeah, that’s a Capped Bust design.”

 
*image courtesy of Wikipedia.com

I stood there for a little bit and wondered what that could be.  This is a pretty good description of what the design looks like on this type of coin.  As you can tell from the picture above, the coin features a bust view of Lady Liberty looking left.  She even has a cap on her head with an inscription on the band of the cap telling who this is.

This design was on several coins.  It was on a half dime (which is a 5 cent piece) which ran 1829 to 1837; a dime, which ran from 1809 to 1837; a quarter, which ran from 1815 to 1839; and a half dollar, which ran from 1807 to 1839.

Collections are assembled different ways, especially with this design.  People collect the design by year, denomination, or even by die variety (which can be collected anyway under the sun, too).

What kinds of cool designs on coins have you seen?

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