1822

The 1822 dime is the second-rarest date in the Capped Bust series, trailing only the 1809 issue with its mintage of 44,710 pieces. The Philadelphia Mint struck just 100,000 dimes dated 1822, a figure that looks even stranger when placed beside its neighbors. The 1821 production reached 1,186,512 coins and the 1823 output settled at 440,000, so the 1822 sits in a sharp valley between two ordinary years. Mint records do not fully explain the drop, though bullion deposit patterns and competing demand for silver half dollars in that era almost certainly played a role. John Reich Collectors Society researchers attribute the entire year to a single die marriage, catalogued as JR-1, meaning every authentic 1822 dime traces back to one obverse and reverse pairing. The piece also represents the large-diameter type of the series, struck on an open collar at 18.8 millimeters before the close-collar standardization of 1828 shrank the design.

Authentication matters more on this date than on almost any other Capped Bust dime, because the price gap between an 1822 and a common-date 1823 or 1827 tempts alteration. Counterfeiters historically reworked the final digit on those higher-mintage neighbors, so the 4 in 1824 or the 3 in 1823 was tooled or recut into a 2. A genuine 1822 should weigh 2.7 grams on a calibrated jeweler's scale and measure 18.8 millimeters across, struck in 0.8924 fine silver with a reeded edge. The single JR-1 die marriage produces a specific date placement that lines up against published die plates in the Davis-Logan reference and the JRCS journal, and any 1822 whose digits sit at the wrong height or angle should be treated as suspect until proven otherwise. Cast counterfeits show grainy surface texture under a 10x loupe and often miss the crisp denticles and fine hair detail of an original strike. For a date in this price tier the safe path is a coin slabbed by PCGS or NGC, the two senior third-party grading services (TPG), where authentication and surface evaluation have already been done.

Survivors are thin across every grade band. PCGS estimates roughly 300 to 500 examples remain from the original 100,000 struck, with most pieces grading Good through Very Fine where circulation wear softens the cap, drapery, and eagle's feathers. Extremely Fine and About Uncirculated coins exist but require patient hunting through major auctions, and full Mint State (MS, uncirculated) pieces are genuine rarities with fewer than 30 known above MS60 across both major grading services. The Heritage and Stack's Bowers archives place top auction trophies in the MS62 to MS64 range, and the PCGS population report's high-water mark for the date is MS65. Because the 1822 is a one-marriage year and the entire surviving population shares the same die fingerprint, comparing a candidate against high-grade plate coins is unusually effective. For more context on the design, the type changes, and how the 1822 fits among the other lowest-mintage Capped Bust dates, see the Capped Bust Dime series history.