1829

The 1829 half dime is the first half dime produced by the United States Mint in twenty-four years. The first coins were struck in the early morning hours of July 4, 1829, as part of the cornerstone dedication ceremony for the second Philadelphia Mint building at Chestnut and Juniper Streets. Mint officials timed the resumption of half dime production to coincide with Independence Day, and at least one 1829 proof half dime was sealed inside the cornerstone of the new building, where it remains today. The ceremonial first strike was both a technical milestone (the first American coin produced using the new close collar die system) and a political statement about the nation's manufacturing maturity.

William Kneass, who had succeeded Robert Scot as Chief Engraver in 1824, created the design by adapting John Reich's earlier Capped Bust template from larger silver denominations. Liberty faces left wearing a soft cap inscribed LIBERTY, with seven stars to her left and six to her right. The reverse shows a heraldic eagle clutching arrows and an olive branch, with the denomination 5C beneath and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA around the border. The coin weighs 1.35 grams of 89.24% silver, the standard for minor silver coinage of the era.

The close collar was the key technical improvement. Previous American coinage had been struck in open collars, which produced slight variations in diameter and uneven rim detail. The close collar enclosed the planchet during striking and imparted the reeded edge simultaneously, creating uniform diameters, square edges, and consistent reeding. The 1829 Capped Bust half dime was the first American coin to benefit from this technology, and every subsequent US coin would use some variant of the same approach.

Philadelphia delivered 1,230,000 coins in 1829, more than the entire combined Draped Bust half dime production (1796-1805). The 1829 is a common date in circulated grades and a reasonable target for collectors wanting an early Capped Bust half dime. Uncirculated examples exist in meaningful numbers. The finest known business strike grades MS67+ from the D. Brent Pogue Collection. Over two dozen die varieties exist, cataloged under the Logan-McCloskey (LM) reference system that specialists use to track every die marriage in the series.