1830 1830/29 Overdate

The 1830/29 Overdate Capped Bust Dime carries one of the quieter overdates in the John Reich series, created when the Philadelphia Mint took an obverse die already punched with the 1829 date, repunched the final digits with an 1830 logotype, and pressed it into service for the new year. An overdate is exactly that kind of leftover: a working die from the previous year, salvaged rather than discarded, that still shows traces of the original digits beneath the new ones. On this dime the underdigits sit at the bottom of the date, where the loop of the 9 lingers below the 0 and the upper curve of the 2 ghosts under the 3. The transition from 1829 to 1830 was a small step compared to the dramatic 1811/09 or 1824/2 jumps, so the visual contrast here is subtle, and many circulated examples wear the underdigits off entirely. The 1830/29 was not separately tracked in Mint reports, so its production is folded into the combined 1830 figure of roughly 510,000 small-type dimes. The John Reich Collectors Society lists it as a distinct JR marriage, meaning a specific obverse-reverse die pairing that researchers have catalogued and numbered for attribution. Survival across all grades is estimated in the low hundreds, and Mint State coins are major rarities that surface only a handful of times per decade.

Authentication starts at the date. The 2 must appear under the 3 in the correct position, and the 9 must appear under the 0, with both underdigits matching the locations shown on published JR die plates rather than floating loose or sitting in the wrong spot. A genuine repunching shows the underdigit metal flowing into the surrounding field with the same depth and texture as the overlying numeral, not raised above it. Tooled fakes typically betray themselves with raised metal pushed up at the underdigit position, where a counterfeiter has scratched the surface to imitate a ghost digit. Cast copies show grainy, pebbled fields and soft rim definition under magnification. Weight should fall at 2.7 grams on the small-type planchet, diameter at 18.5 millimeters, and the reeded edge should run cleanly without seams that betray a struck-copy origin. Major third-party grading services, including PCGS and NGC, attribute confirmed examples on the slab label as "1830/29 Overdate," and Mint State pieces, abbreviated as MS by TPG firms (third-party grading companies), will note the variety designation alongside the numeric grade.

For collectors building a Capped Bust date set, the 1830/29 fills a specialist slot rather than a headline slot, rewarding patient buyers who learn to read the underdigits before they bid. For the full context on small-type and large-type production, the 1828 transition, and the close of the series in 1837, see the Capped Bust Dime series history.