1871 $1 MPD, FS-301 (Regular Strike)

One of the more interesting varieties of the 1871 Silver Dollar is the "mis-placed" date which shows the top of an 8 embedded in the denticles beneath the date (see the illustration above). Misplaced dates occured when the engraver accidentally dropped the date logotype punch onto the face of the die. Because of the random nature of these "drops", traces of one or more digits can (and do) show up in interesting places throughout the entire series of United States coins. According to Bill Fivaz and J.T. Stanton, the authors of the Cherrypickers' Guide, "Other misplaced dates between 1865 and 1873 do exist [on Silver Dollars].

This variety is listed as FS-301. Surprisingly, it only commands a small premium over the normal type price, despite it's being fairly rare. We know of two Mint State examples, the finest of which is the PCGS MS65 sold by Heritage in their April 2015 sale (lot 5144).