1838 Seated Liberty Dime (Partial Drapery)
Variety of the 1838 Seated Liberty Dime struck at the Philadelphia Mint
- Mintage
- Not recorded
- Metal
- 90% silver, 10% copper
- Weight
- 2.67 g
- Diameter
- 17.9 mm
Original illustration. Tap to flip. Not a photograph of the actual coin.
Face value · Metal value · Small premium · Collector premium · Significant rarity. We use bands because prices change daily.
What is an 1838 Seated Liberty Dime (Partial Drapery) worth?
Value depends entirely on whether the coin is genuine and on its condition. Have any candidate authenticated before you buy or sell.
For market prices, check recent sold results for certified coins in the same grade.
Quick answers
- Is the 1838 Seated Liberty Dime (Partial Drapery) rare?
- Yes. It's a variety or error, not a regular issue.
- Is the 1838 Seated Liberty Dime (Partial Drapery) silver?
- Yes. It's 90% silver, 10% copper and holds 0.0773 troy ounces of pure silver.
- Where is the mint mark on an 1838 Seated Liberty Dime?
- On the reverse, below the bow of the wreath or inside the wreath, depending on the year. Philadelphia dimes have no mint mark.
What to check on your 1838
- There's no mint mark on this one, so the date and condition are what matter.
- Check the date and mint mark under magnification for tooling or added letters. Scarce dates are the ones forgers alter.
- Don't clean it. Cleaning leaves fine scratches and an unnatural shine that collectors avoid.
- Old coins pick up damage over a long life. Look for holes, bends, scratches or signs of cleaning before you judge the grade, because a damaged coin sells for a fraction of a problem-free one.
- Judge the grade under good light. LIBERTY on the shield is the key: a full, readable LIBERTY marks a coin in Fine or better. Then check Liberty's head and knee.
Never clean it. Collectors pay strong premiums for original surfaces and natural toning on a date like this. A cleaned coin can lose half its value or more. Low-mintage dates attract altered and counterfeit coins. Check that the date have not been tooled or added, or buy one already certified by PCGS or NGC.
The story of the 1838
No stars, then stars, then drapery (1837 to 1840)
Christian Gobrecht's Seated Liberty design reached the dime in 1837. It was a small version of his silver dollar of 1836 and drew on sketches by the painters Thomas Sully and Titian Peale. The very first dimes show Liberty and the date with no stars at all. Philadelphia struck 682,500 of these No Stars coins, in Large Date and Small Date forms. In 1838 the newly opened New Orleans Mint added 406,034 more, the first dimes ever struck outside Philadelphia. Its dies followed the original design without stars, so the 1838-O is a No Stars coin too.
Philadelphia put thirteen stars around Liberty in 1838 to match the other silver coins and output jumped to 1,992,500. Small Stars, Large Stars and Partial Drapery dies are all part of that figure. New Orleans then struck more dimes than Philadelphia in 1839, with 1,323,000 against 1,053,115. Late in 1840 the sculptor Robert Ball Hughes reworked Liberty. He added a fold of cloth that falls from her left elbow over her knee, gave her a larger cap and stood the shield more upright. Only 377,500 Philadelphia dimes of 1840 carry the new drapery, against 981,500 without it.
For any dime of these four years, start by looking below Liberty's elbow. No extra cloth there means a No Drapery coin. Then count the stars, or note that there are none. Every coin of the period weighs 2.67 grams of 90 percent silver and most survivors are well worn, so a No Stars dime with a clear date and a readable shield is a pleasing find.
Elsewhere in US coinage in 1838
Three branch mints opened in 1838: New Orleans, Louisiana and the gold-only mints at Charlotte, North Carolina and Dahlonega, Georgia. The Liberty Seated design reached the quarter.
How to recognize it
Liberty sits on a rock, her right hand resting on a shield crossed by a scroll reading LIBERTY. Her left hand holds a pole topped by a liberty cap and the date is below. The 1837 and 1838-O coins have nothing else on the obverse. From 1838 to 1860 thirteen stars surround her and from 1860 the words UNITED STATES OF AMERICA take their place. Drapery hangs from her left elbow on coins from late 1840 on. Arrows flank the date on most dimes of 1853 to 1855 and of 1873 to 1874. The reverse shows ONE DIME inside a laurel wreath ringed by UNITED STATES OF AMERICA until 1860. After that a larger cereal wreath of corn, wheat, maple and oak leaves surrounds the words. Branch mint marks are on the reverse near the bow.
Mintage chart
Specifications
| Series | Seated Liberty Dime (1837–1891) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1838 |
| Mint | Philadelphia Mint |
| Mint mark | None |
| Strike type | Circulation strike |
| Mintage | Not recorded |
| Face value | 10¢ |
| Composition | 90% silver, 10% copper |
| Weight | 2.67 grams |
| Diameter | 17.9 mm |
| Edge | Reeded |
| Silver content | 0.0773 troy oz (2.403 g) |
| Designer | Christian Gobrecht |
Other 1838 Seated Liberty Dime issues
| Coin | Mintage | Type | Silver |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1838 Seated Liberty Dime | 1,992,500 | Circulation strike | 0.0773 oz |
| 1838 Seated Liberty Dime (Small Stars) | – | Variety | 0.0773 oz |
| 1838 Seated Liberty Dime (Partial Drapery) | – | Variety | 0.0773 oz |
| 1838-O Seated Liberty Dime | 406,034 | Circulation strike | 0.0773 oz |
Mintage: US Mint records as published in standard references, each figure checked against at least two independent sources. How we build these pages.