Another 1874-S WB-4 Seated Liberty half
Barberian
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I've posted this 1874-S before in the SLH thread because it is one of my favorite SLH's on account of its nice reverse toning. While checking my SLH's against the varieties listed in Mr. Bill Bugert's excellent book on die pairings, "A Register of Liberty Seated Half Dollar Varieties, Volume I, San Francisco Branch Mint", I found out that it is a very rare die pairing as well, It's a WB-4, which is an R-8 according to Bill Bugert (1-3 known). Mr. Bugert writes:
"This date also has a super-rarity – a minute S with a different mintmark position. This die marriage was rumored to exist at the time Randy and I wrote the WB book in 1992 but we were unable to borrow the coin for study. The California owner recognized its rarity and feared its loss through the mail but, ultimately, we got our hands on it and it is featured as die marriage WB-4. After many years of searching, Randy and I have not been able to locate another.
This die marriage is currently unique and the photographed coin belongs to a prominent California collector. It is a pairing of new obverse and new reverse dies and was rumored but unverified at the time Randy and I wrote the WB book. The mintmark position is the key to identifying this die marriage; it is lower and more to the right than the other more common minute S reverse for this date."
This coin purchased raw from eBay means there are at least two examples known. Does any other SLH collector here own or have seen another example?
At the moment, It's in a Dansco album. Does PCGS recognize and print Wiley Bugert variety numbers on their labels if asked? It seems to me that they do.
Finally, if the popular 1875-S micro S, with about 30 known specimens, brings over $1000 in VF. What might an 1874-S WB-4 in VF20 bring on the market? Is it too scarce a date and mintmark or obscure a variety to generate any extra premium? Anyway, it's been fun to discover I own a very rare die pairing.
Comments
First of all, congratulations! I have not looked up your variety but do not doubt your research. If it's as you stated, I would first get it out of that Dansco and put it in a holder with less chance of developing slide marks or annoying hairlines. The date is nice too even without the more scarce variety so I would look to get it certified. PCGS Trueview with CAC (if it qualifies) will maximize it's value even if the variety isn't listed on the holder.
Have you tried contacting Bill Bugert directly to ask him your questions about this variety? Perhaps more have turned up after printing his book and there is new information. I've emailed him and found him to be quite accommodating and forth-coming with information. His email can be found in older versions of the monthly online Gobrecht.
I personally don't think the coin pictured quite makes a VF-20 grade as you indicated. I think an F-15 is more realistic.
Good luck!
really odd that pcgs doesn't have any in the pops. just wb-1,2,3 (type6)
i've sent coins to be the first to be attributed by pcgs but i'll have do dig a bit more here to see what i'm missing here. you may be the first unless they don't accept it yet.
there is a CF page but nothing on it.
ok. i think i've caught up. wb-3 is also a minute mm so pcgs probably puts them both under that pcgs coin number.
have you verified which one you have? wb3 or 4
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The coin matches the diagnosis for a WB-4 perfectly. It is definitely not a WB-3, IMO. Now as an insect taxonomist, I realize that just running through Mr. Bugert's brief diagnosis does not mean that I have a true WB-4. One needs to examine the "holotype" or discovery coin. It could differ from a WB-4 in some undetermined way. However, I'm pretty darn sure it's a WB-4.
I prefer collecting raw coins and displaying them in Dansco albums. However, this coin will definitely be going to PCGS for encapsulation. Hopefully, Mr. Bugert can examine the coin and verify its identity so that PCGS can include the die pair designation on the label.
the good thing is, once you study up the wb3s, if your coin doesn't match that, which there should be plenty of high-res images of, plus the attribution guides, you have the wb4 by default or another one unknown which is unlikely. again, there are no wb4 in the pops and no coin number for it, so either pcgs has never examined one or they haven't approved it (a whole other subject unto itself) so you may desire some documentation to accompany your order or getting someone they accept as an expert to examine the coin first could help grease the wheels so to speak. i'm not sure how much experience you have in this field but i will say the order and method in which you do things can greatly affect a positive outcome. i've plenty of successes and failures. i prefer the former. lol
the coins i was fortunate enough to have pcgs create coin numbers for were not sent in haphazardly. i did a fair bit of research and had experience working with other experts before submitting. helps keep cost and risk down and increases chance of success. don't submit original documents as you may not get them back. always send copies unless you can ensure the originals returns. i made that mistake but once.
i have this thread bookmarked and look forward to its progression.
My SLH Dansco is in a safe deposit box and rarely sees daylight, let alone any handling. If I recall correctly, the coin lacks hairlines, and I find hairlines annoying as well. That's one of the reasons it's one of my favorites along with the reverse toning. I failed to mention that intend to have Trueview pictures taken when it gets encapsulated.
Gradewise, I believe it to be VF20 with the reverse giving it a push, though I'm far from an expert at grading. I have coins with similar wear in VF20, VF 25, and even VF30 holders but they were particularly choice with almost mark-free surfaces. This coin has a small scratch on the thigh and a fine toned-over scratch on the reverse. However, PCGS has definitely tightened up their SLH grading and it would certainly have a better chance for getting a CAC if graded conservatively as an F15. Either grade is fine by me as it won't change the appearance of the coin.
I plan on contacting Mr. Bugert soon. Thanks for the information on reaching him.
It has been a fun discovery. I worked through the diagnosis completely before I read any of his comments about its rarity. I was pleasantly shocked when I did and spent the rest of the evening verifying my diagnosis and checking this coin against other examples of 1974-S die pairings on eBay and Heritage Auctions. Then I posted to several threads here. Yeah, I'm quite excited about this coin. Thanks!
That's a super choice coin regardless of the variety. Nice!
It's definitely a match to the WB-4 obverse and reverse - congrats on your find!
http://www.lsccweb.org/BillBugertBooks.php
Thank you for the excellent comments and suggestions.
I'm not well known to SLH people, though I did meet Dick Osburn and Gerry Fortin briefly for the first time at the 2018 and 2019 FUN shows. I'm an insect taxonomist, so the task of discerning different die states under a scope is not as difficult for me as it might be for others. The same applies to understanding the steps needed to have this die pair certified. Coin "taxonomy" really isn't much different from doing insect taxonomy. This is just the first step in a familiar process for me, with the full understanding that I need to rely on others' expertise here given my shallow experience with coins.
If anything, it's strange that I have only tinkered with die pairings until recently given my background. I've had this coin for ten years without determining its Wiley-Bugert die pairing until now.
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amazing and congratz!
no wonder i couldn't find it, you've had it this whole time!
It's been lurking on the CU coin forum in the SLH megathread, another excellent thread about 1873-S halves, and other threads here for years.
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/11105978#Comment_11105978
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/847248/please-post-your-seated-liberty-images/p17
Congratulations on your find, and hope you succeed with the confirmation and certification of the rare die pair. Cheers, RickO
It does appear to be a WB-4, congratulations! PCGS does slab SLHs with WB numbers and they have one for the 74-S WB-4 specifically - 800914.
https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1874-s-50c-wb-4-arrows-minute/800914
The LSCC is currently doing a survey for S mint seated half dollars so if you are not yet a member I would recommend that you join and participate in the survey. They are specifically asking for a count on this die marriage.
On a side note, a 5th die marriage WB-5 for the 74-S has also been found since publication of the book. It was found by Dick Osburn and is a pairing of obverse 1 with reverse B.
Welcome to die marriage collecting, it can be addicting.
Seated Dollar Collection
Looks like there's a WB-5 on eBay right now. Too shiny cleaned and expensive for me. Are the obverse rim cuds part of the diagnosis for the WB-5 as a late die state perhaps?
https://ebay.com/itm/133607273778?hash=item1f1b9d3532:g:ZeoAAOSw8W9f2N2o
Without seeing Osburn's diagnosis, I'm pretty dang certain this is DIck Osburn's new variety, WB-5. It's an obverse 1 paired with reverse 2 from what I can see. I don't know how rare it is, but it took 10 minutes to find it on eBay.
I have been watching that example as well, but as you mentioned it is priced too high for being cleaned, the seller also mentions rim issues, but perhaps those are just rim cuds, hard to say. One of the pictures shows the cleaning is worse than it appears in the rest of the pictures. I have a feeling that a lot of folks only look at the reverse mintmark and don't bother to check the obverse after that, so I tend to think it might not be super rare but likely scarce.
Seated Dollar Collection
Mr. Bugert disagrees and believes this is a WB-3, with the caveat that he is reluctant to attribute varieties from pictures.
This has become more interesting and fun for me now. This isn't the first time I've been in disagreement with foremost experts in their field on taxonomic issues, and that's what this is, i.e., the taxonomy of SLH's. I have tremendous admiration and respect for Mr. Bugert and his work with SLH's and I relish the opportunity to make my case in the future.
While I agree with Bill that it is difficult to confirm die marriages from only pictures, I continue to believe that this appears to be a WB-4 based on the pictures you have provided. I am obviously looking at the S and it does appear to be slightly below the feather tip and not to the left of it. Additionally, the obverse arrow shaft compared to the tine of the one appears lower which is more closely aligned with obverse 3 in the WB-4. Perhaps @yosclimber can use his digital magic, which is quite impressive, to show us the way.
Seated Dollar Collection
I agree with Mr. Bugert as well that it is best to compare specimens in hand to make a determination. This is a subtle difference in mintmark position and I tip my cap to the California collector who discovered it.
In my mind, I've simplified the position of the mintmark to this: The mintmark for WB-3 is equidistant to the fletching as it is to the nearest claw on the left leg. For WB-4, the mintmark, and particularly the serif, is distinctly closer to the fletching than to the nearest claw.
WB-3
WB-4 
Edited for clarity.
That is a very tough date to find decent, regardless of variety. You have a very wholesome example! I am doing the basic set for the seated halves and am #9 in the ranking for that. Here is my 1874-S, graded AU-53:
10-4,
My Instagram picturesErik
My registry sets
Wow! A very nice WB-1 showing the lump on the leg below the Y-fold to the right of Miss Liberty for Obverse 1. The mintmark position is distinctive as well. That appears to be the most common die-pairing from what I've seen looking at various photos of 1874-S's around the internet.
I'm well aware of your beautiful collection, ElmerFusterpuck, from the examples you share here. You show great discipline and patience in your collecting and with wonderful results. Hence, your compliments on this coin are very much appreciated.
Frankly, I haven't done the registry thing and probably never will because I like raw coins for my Dansco set (while appreciating the value of encapsulation for rare and beautiful specimens) and would score poorly because I purchase coins more for their look than for their grade. I like trying to find and score nice original coins raw from the jungles of eBay. That can be messy and it's getting more difficult to do, but every now and then I land a really nice coin for peanuts, such as the 1874-S discussed in this thread.
With grid lines.
Without grid lines.
Here's my version of the comparison,
which involved rotating Barberian's photo and cropping all the photos to cover the same region of the coins.
Drawing the grid lines can be tricky, because they involve finding the outline of the arrow feather.
On Barberian's coin, the photo has been rotated and expanded by 4x, so it gets rather fuzzy, plus it is a little more worn,
which can change the observed outline.
That's excellent, yosclimber. Thanks!
This illustrates nicely that the mintmark for WB-3 is about equal in distance to the feather as it is to the nearest claw on the left leg. For WB-4, the mintmark, particularly the serif, is clearly closer to the feather than the top curve of the "S" is to the nearest claw. Mine appears to match WB-4 very closely.
All I have are the seller's photos of this coin at the moment. I'll have to fish the coin out of the SDB and scan it or try to snap a picture through a dissecting scope.
Edited for clarity.
A follow-up: The WB-4 was submitted to PCGS for attribution and grading along with a nice, circulated cameo-toned but slightly polished WB-3 in VG to help the graders and attribution folks distinguish between the two. Normally, I would NOT have submitted the WB-3 for grading but felt the need to do so to make sure PCGS attributes the WB-4 correctly.
The WB-4 was much lighter than the seller's photo shown above. I did a double-take when I saw it again after several years sitting in a SDB. Furthermore, the coin had PVC-associated crud on it that required a long soak in acetone. The acetone treatment lifted off a film of crud that hid some hairlines and generally lightened the coin a bit further. The LSCC folks at the Summer FUN show believe it will straight grade even with some exposed hairlines and light microscopic corrosion. I hope so.
This is my first submission to PCGS and included an AU58 (MS63?) Pan Pac and a nicely toned AU Lincoln as well. Now the wait begins. I can't wait for the TrueViews of these coins, particularly the Lincoln. I'll post them when they arrive.
Good luck on your submission. Great thread!
if you possess a smartphone gen 6 or newer, you should be able to find a few angles to image a coin through a slab simply for diagnostic purposes pretty easily. don't worry about glare and such just so long as it isn't on the target area(s).
also don't worry about orientation too much as that can be fixed quite easily in post-processing. just keep originals and make copies for editing.
the only thing to really focus on is trying to get images that are as flat (no tilt) as possible.
on the difficulty of imaging slabbed coins from private sdb rooms with inconsistent lighting, i give this task a 5 out of 10 where 10 is the clarity and size of a trueview and 1 is ebay scammers providing images from drones 50 feet above the coin or whatever and listing it for 1000x of what it could ever be worth. lol
I need to find my digital camera and snap pictures of coins using my dissecting scope. It has worked very well before. My girlfriend took these pictures holding her cellphone up to one of the dissecting scope oculars.
Here is a snapshot of an 1843-P WB-35 that I took a while ago with a Canon Hotshot camera held up to a dissecting scope. I may purchase a new dissecting scope in the future with a built-in camera attachment as well.
Here's another example...NGC's representative coin for the 1874-S. Doesn't appear that they knew that this is Osburn's latest die marriage pairing discovery of Reverse B with Obverse 1, only that it is a "medium-small S" when the picture was posted.
NGC wrote "Just three obverse dies have been identified, and these were paired with four reverses for a total of four die marriages. This is a particularly interesting issue for the variety collector, as three different mintmark styles may be found. One reverse die displays the Small Wide S used 1871-72, and two others repeat the Minute S used for 1873-S halves. Finally, the Medium-Small S of 1872 appears again on 1874-S half dollars, but in this instance, the upper half is filled, and the S is placed extremely low and quite offset to the right. This one is the rarest of the three, though all are obtainable with searching."
So this one is a WB-5, discovered in 2015.
http://www.lsccweb.org/BillBugert-Addenda.shtml
Yes. This WB-5 die pairing is very easy to spot (and overlook). I'm aware of three WB-5's now, and have yet to find its 'sister' marriage, WB-2. As mentioned above, there's one currently on eBay as well, plus the MS discovery coin photographed by Osburn, which is different from this coin. NGC apparently was unaware that this coin used for display was a 'new' 5th die marriage when they discussed the "four known" 74-S's die pairings.
I assume Mr. Osburn recognized the pairing and purchased the discovery coin.
An update:
I'm now working on a survey of 1874-S die marriages appearing in auctions (PCGS auction records) back to 2002 as well as current and recent eBay auction records. I hope to submit the results of this survey as part of an article on 1874-S die marriages for the Gobrecht Journal. I'll also be addressing some of the questions and ideas raised in this thread so far.
I also picked up what I believe is a WB-2 in F02-AG3 off of eBay. Because the seller's photo is blurry (see below), I have to see it in hand before I can be certain of the obverse die type. I'm 99% certain it's WB-2 based upon arrow positions. I figured I'd grab this one now because they're not common (R5). I use the arrow position relative to the date to identify obverse dies on lower-grade coins. It works very well on worn coins all the way down to F02 and most 1874-S's are found in low grades. Hopefully more on that in the GJ article.
It's been 100 days since submitting the WB-4 at Summer FUN (7/9) and 74 business days since it was listed as "received" and cued up for grading (7/19) and I'm still waiting for grades and attributions. PCGS says the four coins (WB-3, WB-4, Lincoln, and Pan Pac commems) have been graded but not attributed, finalized, and TrueViewed. I'm still holding my breath for the WB-4 to straight grade (seller's photo's in the OP are very misrepresentative), though other Seated folks assured me they believe it will. Beginning to turn purple, though.
Five months after submitting the coins to PCGS at Summer FUN, the grades for my submission were posted today and I'm delighted! The 1874-S WB-3 and WB-4 were straight graded and properly attributed. I agree with the F15 grade for the WB-4. I'll post the Trueviews when they become available.
By the way, I am overjoyed with the MS63 grade for the Pan Pac half! A $195 purchase off of eBay because the coin is "crusty" and the seller's photos were poor), I figured it would grade AU58. In my wildest dreams, I entertained the idea it just might grade MS63 or 64. The only 'problem' now is it's no longer suitable for my Dansco collection of circulated classic commems.
Edited to correct price of Pan Pac
Congrats on some great grades! And congrats on getting a straight grade on the 1874-S WB-4 half!
An authorized PCGS dealer, and a contributor to the Red Book.
Thanks! It's cool to have a Pop 1/0 PCGS coin for the first time, and having it be an F15.
The coins arrived today when I wasn't even expecting a delivery. I checked earlier today and the order page said it was going through "Quality check". Five hours later - it's in my mailbox. I still do not have the Trueviews. When will the Trueviews be emailed to me and/or posted on the Certification # page?
Looking at the WB-4 again after 5 months and 5 days, I'm somewhat surprised that it straight graded, though I was assured by top dealers at Summer FUN that the coin was fine for straight-grading. The acetone soak lifted off a film that hid hairlines and fine corrosion. The coin doesn't look anything like the coin in the original post, particularly the color. It's light gray, not red-brown. The seller digitally added a LOT of color to the coin. If this was a common variety I would not purchase this coin based upon its hairlines and light corrosion if I saw it at a show. Thank goodness it was an eBay purchase. The reverse is nicer than the obverse, and that's the more important side of this particular variety. It's a PCGS 1/0, so who's complaining. The other WB-4 is EF40 but appears to have notably more corrosion on its surfaces.
Delighted to see the Pan Pac in an MS63 holder. Can't wait for the Trueviews, particularly for the Lincoln and Pan Pac.
And as I type this, the Trueviews were just posted on the cert. # page. WOW! It looks like Trueview hid the hairlines and added some color as well. Who says you can't put lipstick on a pig?
PCGS F15 WB-4
PCGS VG10 WB-3
It's now pictured on the Coinfacts page for the WB-4.
https://pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1874-s-50c-wb-4-arrows-minute/800914/15
So few 74-S die marriages have been attributed by PCGS, even pictures of the WB-3 were added to the WB-3 page. I gather attributing SLHs is rather new, or too expensive to bother with.
I hope I'm not too obnoxious doing my coin "happy dance" here. The WB-4 and this entire submission to PCGS is one of the best coin 'victories' I've had since I've been collecting.
This is a better representation of how the coin actually looks in-hand.
Thread update. There are now three WB-4s known. This AU53 was recently sold to a California DM collector by Brian Greer. It appears to be a later die state than the other two by the larger die crack across Liberty's left upper drapery. This die crack is found to different degrees on all three coins.