1811 1811/09 Overdate

The 1811/09 Capped Bust Dime is the only dime dated 1811, and every surviving example is an overdate. After striking no dimes at all during 1810, the Philadelphia Mint pulled an unused 1809-dated obverse die from storage and repunched the final two digits with an 11 for the new year's production. The result is one of the most famous overdates in early American coinage: the curve of the 0 sits plainly under the 1 of the new date, and the tail of the 9 shows through the second 1. Roughly 65,180 pieces were struck from a single die marriage cataloged as JR-1 by the John Reich Collectors Society, a research group focused on early federal silver. Because there is no plain 1811 dime to compare against, collectors building a date set of John Reich's Capped Bust design treat this overdate as the entire 1811 entry.

The Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS), one of the major third-party grading services (TPGs), estimates that only about 300 to 500 examples survive in all grades combined, with the population thinning sharply above Very Fine. Authentication centers on the underdigits, the older numerals lying beneath the repunched date. On a genuine piece the 0 and 9 occupy the exact positions documented in the JR-1 die plates, with crisp metal flow lines between the layered figures. Tooled fakes built from common-date dimes betray themselves through raised burrs, polishing marks, or a softened field around the date where a punch was forced into struck metal. Weight is another quick check, since the Mint standard is 2.7 grams on a planchet of .8924 fine silver; cast counterfeits typically run light or heavy and lose detail in Liberty's hair curls. Auction records from Heritage and Stack's Bowers show the finest certified pieces clustering in the MS62 to MS64 band, where MS is the Mint State range used by PCGS and the Numismatic Guaranty Company (NGC).

Surface originality drives price more than raw grade on this issue. Cleaned coins, lightly tooled fields, and questionable retoning push examples into "details" holders that trade for a fraction of straight-graded equivalents, while pieces with even gunmetal toning and intact luster bring strong premiums when they appear. The 1811/09 also anchors any serious type set covering the War of 1812 era, a period when small change was scarce and Spanish silver still dominated daily commerce. For year-by-year mintages, design history, and the full list of John Reich die marriages, see the Capped Bust Dime series history.