Damaged but Very Scarce Half Dime - 1840-O With Drapery V-7
I follow a few collectors and dealers on Instagram and one of them put up an 1840-O half dime for the princely sum of twelve dollars. Was pretty clear from the photos that the coin was damaged... but I immediately noticed that this was the 1840-O With Drapery. Any 1840-O half dime is scarce, but the With Drapery especially so. They were struck within the last six weeks or so of 1840. (edit - my survival estimate was probably on the low side, lol)
So I claimed that listing immediately. A couple minutes after, another collector offered me $45 immediately... which I turned down. This is one of those dates where you take what you can get, and can't be too picky, especially if on a budget like I am. Very welcome addition to my Half Dime collection.
Feel like @rhedden and @roadrunner might be interested in taking a look at this very tough half dime and giving some additional thoughts.
"Finding semi-key date half dimes is one thing. Buying them is another. But the hardest part is actually photographing the damn things" - some numismatist, somewhere
"You can't get just one gun." "You can't get just one tattoo." "You can't get just one 1796 Draped Bust Large Cent."
Comments
Both the with and without drapery 1840 O's are basically the same value in this state, but no doubt a nice pickup for $12. Congrats.
jim
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.....Mark Twain
There are many "with drapery" 1840-o half dimes offered on ebay; most of them much more damaged than yours.
I estimate the rarity of the V-7 and V-5 as R-3 (Sheldon scale), so I think the surviving populations of each is 201-500 (well over 200).
It is a little tricky to estimate rarity based on counts available for sale and auction appearances,
because these are always shown as higher value in the Red Book than the no drapery 1840-o.
So I think people are more likely to put their with drapery 1840-o coins up on ebay and Heritage than the no drapery versions.
So it could be more rare than my estimate.
The mintages are:
695,000 no drapery
240,000 with drapery
If we define this as the highest mintage key Redbook listing (it's not truly a date; it is a Redbook variety),
then there are 22 keys:
In my view, that's too many keys. I'd put the cutoff at < 100,000 which yields 11 keys.
P.S. It's cool that you went "beyond the Redbook" and figured out this is a V-7!
Yup V-5 has the crack from M in AMERICA and V-7 has the crack from U in UNITED. Easy way to distinguish the two. Love varieties in general.
But yeah... "semi key" or "tough date" is probably more accurate than just calling half the dates in the series keys, lol. Probably just more excited about my find than anything. I actually have a 67-S and a 71-S. I can pull up pictures of both of those but they will be pretty old pictures.
"You can't get just one gun." "You can't get just one tattoo." "You can't get just one 1796 Draped Bust Large Cent."