Seated Liberty Half Dimes
Mint Director Robert M. Patterson, who took office in September 1835, moved quickly to improve the silver coinage. He found the Capped Bust design insufficiently dignified for a maturing republic and…
Denomination
Half Dimes
5 articles
Bust (Original) Half Disme
The Constitution gave Congress the exclusive right to coin money, settling a question that had produced chaotic results under the Articles of Confederation. The conceptual architecture of the new…
Draped Bust Half Dimes
The Flowing Hair coinage had drawn consistent criticism almost from the moment it circulated. Contemporary observers found the Liberty portrait ungainly, lacking the classical refinement that…
Capped Bust Half Dimes
The half dime vanished from American commerce after 1805 and did not return for twenty-four years. The most plausible explanation offered by numismatic scholars, including Breen, is that banks found…
Flowing Hair Half Dimes
The 1792 half disme struck in John Harper's cellar had demonstrated that the new republic could produce silver coinage. What it had not established was a functioning Mint operating from its own…