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Are die cracks common on the 1859 cent? I think this one has three cracks, any comments.

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Very common.....

I have looked at 10's of thousands of 1859's (and have over 1000) and I have yet to see one didn't have a die crack somewhere or a repunched letter/digit. I'm not even counting the vine breaks at leaf 7 & 13 that EVERY '59 has

Thanks for the information, very helpful.

There were about 9 million minted (maybe a little less depending on how many 1858's and 9/8's came out) with an average die life of less than 50,000 strikes for the Reverse. The Reverse dies were, by far, the ones that failed the fastest because of the intricate design, so you may have some Reverse dies that lasted 70, 000 and some that maybe only lasted 1000. At last count there were a little over 200 Reverse dies actually delineated. With the striking process, steel alloys, and machinery designed for thicker coins (the 1859's were the same diameter as the Brit halfpenny, but 1/3 thinner), the dies were destroyed pretty fast. The 1859's are a collecting category all by itself, since you have marriage pairings to deal with as well. Some Obverse dies were paired with 5-6 different reverses because the failure rates were so severe.

As I said before, you are very lucky to find a coin with NO die cracks, and even those will have repunched characters.