Pitter Patter About Patterns

Liberty Seated collectors tend to not discuss pattern coins, and it's understandable why. They areexpensive, and no one is going to see cases full of pattern coins at a typical coin show. More typically you see apiece here and there in dealer offerings, perhaps a small group if a dealer specializes in patterns, but such dealers are few and far between. Even if pattern coins are generally available, no one is quite sure how to collect them. It's not like Whitman issues a coin folder with a list of the ones you are supposed to acquire.

Some years ago I came on the idea of collecting one each of every major design type within the Seatedquarter pattern series. It's about seven or eight coins. Probably I was influenced by the old saying that everycollection should contain at least one pattern coin. You can be sure that saying was made up by someone whohad pattern pieces to sell. In any event, I bought the first coin from a self-proclaimed in theseries, a nice toner in PR66. I gave up on the series after a few failed attempts to acquire some of the tougherpieces, which exist in single-digit quantities. The PR66 got offered back to the dealer who sold it, and failed toattract even a lowball offer. So much for status. I put the piece in a Heritage sale and took a$100 loss on it. In my view the $100 represented the cost to a rare coin for a few years.

Today I own only a single pattern piece, a Judd-158 1854 pattern cent that features the Liberty Seated design. The workmanship is crude and represents an intermediate step in the die production process. Reduced by a lathe from an 1854 dollar die, the die bears circular lathe marks that, in normal production, wouldbe smoothed out. I enjoy the piece as a curiosity - who ever heard of a Liberty Seated These dieswere produced in order to test different alloys for coining, none of which were adopted, and the coiner wasmore interested in testing different compositions than in producing neatly finished dies.

For more information about the Liberty Seated Collectors Club, see:
http://www.lsccweb.org/