1797 Draped Bust Dime (13 Stars obverse)
Variety of the 1797 Draped Bust Dime struck at the Philadelphia Mint
- Mintage
- Not recorded
- Metal
- 89.24% silver, 10.76% copper
- Weight
- 2.7 g
- Diameter
- 19 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 a 1797 Draped Bust Dime (13 Stars obverse) 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 1797 Draped Bust Dime (13 Stars obverse) rare?
- Yes. It's a variety or error, not a regular issue.
- Is the 1797 Draped Bust Dime (13 Stars obverse) silver?
- Yes. It's 89.24% silver, 10.76% copper and holds 0.0775 troy ounces of pure silver.
- Where is the mint mark on a 1797 Draped Bust Dime?
- No mint mark. Every Draped Bust dime was struck in Philadelphia.
What to check on your 1797
- 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. Look at the hair above Liberty's forehead and the folds of drapery at her shoulder. On the reverse check the eagle's breast and wing tips.
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 1797
The first dimes and the small eagle (1796 to 1797)
The first American dimes were struck in 1796. Robert Scot's Draped Bust portrait, already used on other silver coins, shows Liberty with her hair tied by a ribbon and drapery at her shoulder. The reverse has a small eagle perched on clouds inside a wreath. There is no denomination anywhere on the coin. The portrait is traditionally said to follow a drawing by Gilbert Stuart, though that link is not documented. Users recognized the dime by its size and weight, 2.70 grams of silver 0.8924 fine and about 19 millimeters across.
Philadelphia struck 22,135 dimes dated 1796, all with fifteen stars on the obverse. In 1797 it made 25,261. Some 1797 coins have sixteen stars, one added for Tennessee, which had joined the Union in 1796. The Mint soon realized it could not keep adding stars, so other 1797 coins have thirteen stars, one for each original state.
These two dates are the only Draped Bust dimes with the small eagle reverse, which makes them important type coins. Both are significant rarities. Most survivors are worn and many have damage, holes or cleaning. The coins were struck one at a time on a screw press and planchets were often filed to the correct weight before striking. Those fine parallel file lines, called adjustment marks, are a sign of the period and are not damage. Count the stars, check the eagle and look for repairs.
Elsewhere in US coinage in 1797
Production of the Draped Bust quarter stopped after 1796 and would not resume until 1804.
How to recognize it
Liberty faces right with her hair loosely tied by a ribbon, curls falling behind her neck and drapery across her bust. LIBERTY runs along the top, the date sits below the bust and stars fill both sides: fifteen in 1796, sixteen or thirteen in 1797 and thirteen from 1798 on. The 1796 and 1797 reverse shows a small eagle with raised wings standing on clouds inside an open wreath tied with a bow, ringed by UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. From 1798 the reverse carries the heraldic eagle, with a shield on its breast, arrows and an olive branch in its claws, a ribbon reading E PLURIBUS UNUM in its beak and stars under an arc of clouds. No denomination appears anywhere, so the size of about 19 millimeters and the reeded edge are what identify it.
Mintage chart
Specifications
| Series | Draped Bust Dime (1796–1807) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1797 |
| Mint | Philadelphia Mint |
| Mint mark | None |
| Strike type | Circulation strike |
| Mintage | Not recorded |
| Face value | 10¢ |
| Composition | 89.24% silver, 10.76% copper |
| Weight | 2.7 grams |
| Diameter | 19 mm |
| Edge | Reeded |
| Silver content | 0.0775 troy oz (2.409 g) |
| Designer | Robert Scot |
Other 1797 Draped Bust Dime issues
| Coin | Mintage | Type | Silver |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1797 Draped Bust Dime | 25,261 | Circulation strike | 0.0775 oz |
| 1797 Draped Bust Dime (13 Stars obverse) | – | Variety | 0.0775 oz |
Mintage: US Mint records as published in standard references, each figure checked against at least two independent sources. How we build these pages.