1900 Barber Half GTG
BDubz
Posts: 64 ✭✭
Happy Holidays! Hoping you could GTG on this 1900 Philly Barber Half I grabbed at a recent estate auction. This thing has some great detail
1
BDubz
Posts: 64 ✭✭
BDubz
Posts: 64 ✭✭
BDubz
Posts: 64 ✭✭
Comments
AU55
The photos are not helping the cause...
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
XF45.... but those pictures make it difficult....Could be +/- Cheers, RickO
Yes its hard to get a decent shot on this one. Its got a pretty dark chocolate tone with some dark rainbow around the outside. I need to take it out of the flip to get better shots I think.
The lighter brown is not tone changes....thats the actual cartwheel luster thats still there. Just really hard to get that in the pic. Ill try harder next time!!
Nice coin and AU in terms of wear.
Does it seem to have been lightly polished ages ago?
Looks AU
I’m almost thinking whizzed....but the photos are through cellophane and I’m viewing them on an older iPhone. So it may be just me.
AU 58 detail though.
AU details, (possibly) cleaned.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
I think the lighting used is doing the coin no favors at all, but my guess is a Ch AU coin (AU55-58) details with perhaps surfaces that have been worked on in the past.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Don't know the series. But.......55 details?.... Cleaned?
au55/58 possibly details
AU55-ish. Lighting makes it difficult to guess.
Dave
58!
AU. Mid to high.
AU Details.
If not cleaned, AU55
My YouTube Channel
Looks high AU.
Either impaired or PR60.
Looks 58 to me
Nothing about that coin says “Proof” - impaired or otherwise.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
I'm thinking it would look better in hand and was thinking more 58/63. After seeing the above posts I might be over estimating.
58 details. Might straight grade, but probably not.
Good luck.
To my eye the reverse pics show the coin as more wholesome looking. AU-58 if it's not cleaned.
Ouch.
That stung a little.
(I was looking at the fullness of the strike on all the obverse stars...)
I’m confident that you’ll heal quickly.😉
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Feld, the fields look proofish too.
I see no reflectivity, whatsoever.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Thus my impaired opinion.
MS63 to me.
"Gold is the canary in the financial coal mine." (Alan Greenspan)
"I only golf on days that end in 'Y'" (DE59)
AU-63
I really appreciate everyone's feedback. Even the dry ones. I speak fluent sarcasm....and am definitely just an insurance guy. I cant build stuff....and I cant take great pictures of it after its built either. Haha. But here are a few looks at the coin broke out of the flip....
Its very darkly toned to the naked eye with no light play.....
The coin still looks AU to me and possibly, if not likely cleaned - particularly on the obverse.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
My opinion is the same as it was previously; an AU coin with possibly altered surfaces. However, since you have come back to post again, why don't you share with all of us what you believe the grade to be?
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
I was just posting more pics because the first set wasn't great. I honestly have no idea what the grade may be. I'm a novice at best, which appears not to be well accepted around these parts. But my guess was somewhere in the AU55-MS61 range. I too have concerns that its been cleaned....but im not sure if it was recently or not.
But it also does not have clear signs of cleaning either. No hairline under deep magnification or anything like that so its hard to tell.
Yikes! All those different shots under different lighting makes it impossible to judge your coin. Just send it to me and I will tell you the grade!
Same lighting.....same place in all shots. All I did was shift the coin under the light....for what its worth
My gut feeling is that it was cleaned with a not very abrasive silver polish and retoned (possibly with help).
The part of your statement that I quoted and put stars around (**) might be one of the most off-target opinions I have ever read on this board and I have been on these boards since the 1990s and seen lots of folks write lots of stuff. In general, folks on these boards really, really like to help others; especially those who might not be coming here with tons of experience. What folks typically do not like however, are those people who register simply to troll the boards and pretend to be new members or are simply argumentative.
Welcome to the boards!
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Awesome. I appreciate the heads up. No trolling here...and I definitely don't know enough to be argumentative. I'm a new member (to here and PCGS) just trying to figure it all out. I have a lot to learn no doubt....
Please understand that I had not thought you were trolling and had also not thought you were being argumentative. There has been more than one instance when my writing style has rubbed a member the wrong way and I want to make certain that we are all good here.
Is this coin part of a type set or complete Barber half dollar set? Alternatively, was it a buy because it was a nice coin at a reasonable price? I ask because there are a few of us (myself and @amwldcoin from this thread) who really specialize in this series.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
No this is actually my first decent Barber half. I have a few in the G-VF range but none with this kind of detail I grabbed this one at an online estate auction recently. The pics they had up were frankly terrible....but that ended up doing me well I think because it kept the price down. I picked it up for about the price of an XF45 or AU50 according to recent auction.
I havent really gravitated to any type quite yet. I'm still just enamored with all types still. Haha.
I've generally been all over the board so far in the collecting. Quite a few morgan and peace dollars of varying quality. Lots of gold and junk silver (which is what started the interest)....and then I've mixed in some nice type examples along the way. A real nice 1864 two-cent, an uncirculated 1917s Standing Lib quarter....some decent walkers and so on. I could literally kill you poor souls with questions on grade with some of them, but I definitely won't do that. I just want to learn! Haha
A few random thoughts.
First, welcome! You should have seen some of the first photos that I posted here.
Some of your photos make it look cleaned and others look better. Photos shot through the plastic of a 2x2 flip are almost impossible to interpret. I agree with the thought of a mid-AU details grade. It does indeed have nice detail.
If it is a cleaned, AU details-grade coin, it looks like it's probably worth $200-250 . An AU55 1900 50c without problems in a PCGS holder will probably trade at around $400. My own personal rule is to only buy coins with a value over $100 or $200 if they're slabbed. I'll make an occasional exception if it's in a series I understand well.
If you venture into coins that are a bit more expensive, you'll do yourself a huge favor to learn a bit, go slowly, buy coins in top-tier slabs, and really search for the coins that speak to you. A random nice coin can be found at so-called "estate" sales and small-time auctions, but for every one that is worthwhile, there are hundreds that are not. Generally the people who can identify them have tons of experience and they're not guessing.