Years after discovery of two different rim widths on 1979-P Anthony dollars, controversies continued about the varieties.
The original 11-sided "security rim" was intended to distinguish the new-sized coin by its wider segments, as opposed to the even peripheral rims on all other U.S. coins. Making the entire dollar coin 11-sided had been discussed, but planners opted for the smoother roll that a round coin could achieve in a vending machine coin chute. By being given 11 sides within the circle of the coin, the rim grew thinner at each corner of the inner design, widened, then thinned to another point at the next corner.
Sometime during the first year of production, even wider rim segments were chosen for part of the Philadelphia Mint output. Thus we have the Wide Rim subtype, also called "near date," on which the rim extends inward farther, away from the edge, and the Narrow Rim subtype, also called "far date," on which the rim stays close to the edge and farther from the date. The distance between the date and the bust of Anthony stays the same.
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WIDE RIM 1979-P Anthony dollar shows the distance of the date and stars from the border.
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First report
Anthony dollars were first released to circulation July 2, 1979. It was not until May 1980 that the different rim widths were first reported on 1979-P Anthony dollars, when Herbert P. Hicks wrote an article in Error-Variety News, published by John A. Wexler and Robert C. Wilharm. Hicks credited George W. Maschke of New York with noting a Wide Rim variety the very month Anthony dollars were introduced.
Hicks wrote at the same time that he had been examining photographs and had seen only two examples of 1979-P Anthony, Wide Rim dollars, which were not identified as such in the publications involved.
"Incidentally," Hicks writes in the article, "George Maschke's first roll was approximately 50-50 and he remains the only person to my knowledge to have knowingly found any."
Thus, with only a couple of dozen examples known, Hicks had a question as to why, if this was a hub variety, it was found so far only on Philadelphia coins, and if it was a variety confined to one or more working dies, why the apparent experiment was at the Philadelphia Mint.
One answer might be that these were experimental pieces that had escaped unintentionally. In time, though, millions turned up. It also became evident as 1980 Anthony dollars entered circulation that the Wide Rim had become the standard for all Mints and for Proof strikes too.
Hicks' own speculations gave an opening to early doubters when he wrote, "Strangely enough, all specimens I have seen seem to have been from well used dies."
Wexler noted later that some in the hobby then began calling Wide Rim dollars the product of a worn hub, not a true subtype at all.
"Since we personally had had experience studying worn hubs and the effects that they have on dies, we did not buy that explanation for a second," Wexler writes. "After some futile arguing, we took our case directly to the Mint and asked Dr. Alan J. Goldman, then deputy director of the Mint, to please settle the issue once and for all."
In September 1981, Error-Variety News published a letter from Dr. Goldman.
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NARROW RIM SUBTYPE is shown in close-up of date area on this 1979-P Anthony dollar.
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"The 'close date-rim alignment' coins are neither the result of a worn hub," he wrote, "nor a design modification done to eliminate die cracks, but a design modification to enhance the appearance of the coin. The correct explanation is that the border on the obverse of the later 1979-P and all of the 1980 issues was widened to provide a more balanced appearance with respect to both obverse and reverse borders. Hence, the border was moved closer to the date."
Here, Goldman not only confirms that a deliberate design change was made, he also says the change occurred in the latter part of the year and was continued on 1980 coins of all mints.
Apparently, Maschke was mistaken about finding Wide Rim coins earlier, or some early prototypes may have entered circulation unintentionally.
A reader, Ray Pinon of New Jersey, was interested in whether the Mint kept track of comparative numbers. After all, it had kept track of subtypes in some cases in the past, such as the V.D.B. reverse dies used for some of the 1909 and 1909-S Lincoln cents, and in other cases dear to collectors it had not, such as large and small dates on 1960 cents (a difference the Mint even denied existing).
Wexler said Pinon's persistence was such that Wexler wrote to Dr. George Hunter, the Mint's assistant director for technology.
In the March 1983 issue of Error-Variety News, Hunter's letter in response was reproduced. Hunter said the best information he could obtain was that 643 Wide Rim dies had been used at the Philadelphia Mint in 1979. With an estimated die life of 250,000 strikes, those dies would have produced 160,750,000 coins, he said.
This figure would be about 44 percent of all 1979-P Anthony dollar production of 360,222,000.
Slow acceptance
Doubters continued to delay widespread acceptance of the varieties. Among those who did accept, many expected that the apparent scarcity would not last, that most of the Wide Rim dollars were still among the hundreds of millions of coins that lay in vaults for years, awaiting consumer demand.
In the middle, many collectors remained uninformed or misinformed, some confused by use of "near date" and "far date" instead of the clearer "wide rim" and "narrow rim."
Even many dealers, not hearing a drumbeat of demand and offers of more cash, paid no attention to the differences.
Walter Breen, in his 1988 Complete Encyclopedia of Colonial and United States Coins, muddled nomenclature further by labeling the narrow rim "Type I" and the wide rim "Type II." He said "Type I" exists either with "thick numerals" or "thin numerals," and that on some "Type II" obverses, the date "apparently touches rim; this was unintentional." Other catalogs have not followed in differentiating these probable cases of dies made from worn or distorted hubs.
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WIDE RIM SUBTYPE is shown in close-up of date area on another 1979-P Anthony dollar.
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By the late 1990s, depletion from the vaults was in sight. As new 1999 Anthony dollars had to be struck to meet demand, and Sacagawea dollars began to be produced, collectors gradually came to agree that there had been no massive hoard of wide rims in waiting.
The result was ideal for collectors. They still have a chance of finding the scarce wider rim in circulation, but the spread in values in lower grades is not very great. Even in Mint State 63, A Guide Book of United States Coins lists the 1979-P Anthony, Wide Rim dollar at $20 retail, the Narrow Rim dollar at $3.
Prices for the scarcer coin escalate in higher grades. The April 28 online update of Coin World's Coin Values gives values of $100 in MS-65 and $1,000 in MS-67; corresponding prices for the Narrow Rim are $15 and $125.
Among other publications years after the original 1979 to 1981 Anthony production period, Q. David Bowers' 1993 Silver Dollars and Trade Dollars of the United States: A Complete Encyclopedia quotes David Sundman, president of Littleton Coin Co., as commenting, "Since our company has sold over one million sets of 1979-P-D-S Susan B. Anthonys and only found 1,600 pieces of the ‘Near Date' [Wide Rim] variety, we assume the production of this variety was very small."
