50 Years Ago - A Seated Quarter Analysis
Manifest_Destiny
Posts: 6,897 ✭✭✭✭✭
I've been looking through a 1973 Red Book and thought I'd share some analysis related to seated quarters. The Liberty Seated Collectors Club (LSCC) was also founded in 1973. Here's a page from the 1973 Red Book.
The top 10 most valuable coins in VF (my collecting target) are:
- $1400 - 1873-cc NA
- $850 - 1873-cc WA
- $500 - 1872-cc
- $425 - 1870-cc
- $375 - 1878-s
- $285 - 1871-cc
- $210 - 1849-o
- $200 - 1891-o
- $160 - 1853 NA
- $150 - 1864-s
It's interesting that the Carson City issues were generally regarded as the rarest as a whole, but they are in far different rankings than we would put them today. The 73-cc NA will always be at the top for obvious reason but the ranking for the others is very different 50 years later. Looking at the rankings above, I almost think that the 73-cc WA was riding on the coattails of the 73-cc NA and the 78-s on the 78-s half dollar rarity. Even today, PCGS is saying that the 73-cc WA is "estimated 50 known" which is obviously not true. There are 90 total listed in the combined PCGS/NGC population reports.
Here are the current top 10 rankings in VF25 from the PCGS price guide:
- $150,000 - 1873-cc NA (in XF40, VF is not one of the 5 known and it would certainly bring more than this)
- $45,000 - 1871-cc
- $40,000 - 1870-cc
- $25,000 - 1873-cc WA
- $16,000 - 1872-cc
- $7500 - 1872-s
- $7000 - 1860-s
- $4750 - 1849-o
- $4000 - 1853 NA
- $4000 - 1842-o SD
Comparing these rankings, I would say that the Carson City issues sorted themselves out in the correct order. The 71-cc is regarded as slightly more rare than the 70-cc. Interesting that in 1973 it was thought that the 72-cc was more rare than either of them. It's now (correctly) known to be much more common than the other 70-73-cc issues.
Of the remaining 5 slots in the top 10, only two issues were still on the list 50 years later, the 49-o and 53 NA. Somewhere along the way the 60-s and 42-o SD made the list, undeservedly I think. Both are far more common than justified by the pricing structure. The 64-s is the rarest San Francisco issue in my opinion and should have never left the top 10.
This would be my top 10 list for rarity, not considering price:
- 1873-cc NA
- 1871-cc
- 1870-cc
- 1873-cc WA
- 1872-cc
- 1853 NA
- 1864-s
- 1866-s
- 1849-o
- 1871-s
I think the first 5 slots are generally undisputed, 6 through 10 are a little more subjective. I found the 53 NA to be way tougher than any San Francisco issue. I've also found the 60-s to be the most overrated coin in the series. I'm not sure how it ended up so expensive compared to the 64-s and 66-s. The 72-s is a bit overrated also. I think the 71-s is just as rare for half the price.
I'd be glad to hear the opinions of others with more experience in the series @rhedden @Crepidodera as well anyone else who wants to comment.
Comments
Is your list rarity across all grades or just VF? I cannot disagree with the first 5 of your list.
Don't you mean 1866 not 1866-s? typo?
66-s should not be in the top 10. If you include 66-s then I would put 67-s ahead of it.
1872-s has a good population in VF as does 71-s but 72-s a lot tougher xf and up.
Don 't forget the 73 closed 3
Just my twobits.
Rarity estimates for Liberty Seated Quarters should be regarded as suspect. Starting about the time of the founding of the LSCC hoarding of the scarce and rare dates became widespread. Who really knows how many of those coins were hoarded over the past 50 years. The hoarders won't tell and many of the hoards won't surface until the hoarders pass from the scene and the heirs start dumping "those old coins he had".
Don,
Thanks for starting another great discussion involving our prized liberty seated quarters! It's interesting how perceptions of
rarity for them have changed over the years, especially for the 1878-S. Here are my top 12 rankings:
I expanded my list to twelve coins because #11 and #12 are so close to making the top ten.
Doug
12 corrected
No worries, I appreciate your input! I'm glad to see we agree on 9 out of the top 10. That makes me feel like my observations are pretty close to reality. I wavered on putting the 72-s on the list instead of the 71-s but I've seen more 72's's the past couple of years than 71-s's. I think the 71-s is underrated.
It's just a matter of what each collector has observed while building a set. For example, in the 90's to early 00's, the1867-S quarter was never available. But as 291fifth stated, some dates have been hoarded and then later released on the market. There has been many F-VF 1867-S quarters for sale the last 5-8 years, though most of them are a little rough. I think both the 1871-S and 1872-S quarters are underrated, especially nice examples. There are only nine CAC 1872-S quarters!
Doug
...
Should one of these be without the S?
Since hoarding is almost always a way to lose money, I doubt it would be widespread.
Can you offer a rough count of people you know that hoard them?
Or is this an unproven theory of yours?
Back in the 1970's and 1980's I was an active collector of Liberty Seated coins. At that time it was very possible to find better date coins in dealer stocks and this includes small shops and Sunday bourse dealers. You could also find many of the common dates in high circulated grades without great difficulty. Look at typical dealer stocks today. You are lucky to find a presentable 1853 Arrows & Rays, let alone a scarce or rare date. The hoarders aren't going to tell you what they have so you can never be sure just what is really out there. Today, "what is out there" seems to be very little compared to the past.
You are probably right about dealer inventories of seated quarters being low.
I know that Gerry Fortin mentions this from time to time.
But I believe trying to explain the low inventories involves guessing.
Your offered explanation is that there are people hoarding them,
i.e. holding multiple copies of multiple dates and not offering them for sale.
There are alternative explanations.
It could be that there are simply more seated quarter collectors now.
And it could be that dealers who used to have them in the 1970s and 1980s,
sold most of them on ebay, since they could then reach collectors anywhere instead of just local collectors.
The main question relative to your hoarding theory is "what kind of people have them now?"
My #12 coin should be the 1860-S quarter, although the 1866 is also a very tough coin. Thanks for pointing out my duplication.
Doug
It's also interesting to note that the 55-o and 55-s were #11 and #12 in 1973.
I agree. While it's hard to find those two dates without problems, they're readily available if you're not too picky.
Yup, there are a few dates that I used to always snag.
Always had a thing for those large S coins.
EAC 6024
You can edit your post, by clicking on the "gear" icon on the upper right corner of the post box,
and choosing Edit.
An interesting thing happened with some of the "key dates" in this series. Looking at even older Red Books, the 1849-O, 1855-S, and 1878-S were always highly regarded as keys in the series. As time went on, people started to realize they were overrated. The interesting part was the resulting over-reaction, which led to word on the street that these former dates are way overpriced and aren't rare at all. Not true. These coins did not appreciate much due to the word of mouth bashing, which led to them being undervalued by the early 2000s. People finally started to realize a few years ago that a nice 1849-O quarter really is a key date, and they have taken off in value. The 1878-S is still completely asleep. I tell ya, it's a very tough coin that deserves key date status. It tends to show up in XF-MS65 grades, leading to the perception that it's more available than it really is. There are only 14 of them with CAC stickers in all grades. As for 1855-S, it's a key date with a CAC bean on it. There are only 15 of them available with CAC approval in all grades combined. If you'll settle for a slightly manipulated example, it turns out that it really was overrated years ago; it's not that tough to find a damaged one.
As for overall rarity in all grades, my opinion has changed a bit the past few years as hoards got broken up, metal detectorists in Nevada found something shiny, and certain dates stopped growing in the PCGS pop report.
I forgot about the 86, that's a tough one in anything below unc.
Rhedden,
I totally agree on the 1878-S, now both underrated and underpriced.
Doug
How many of these were cracked out and resubmitted?
The pops can be way off
Just saying
Mike
My Indians
Danco Set
When you're talking about the most expensive coins in the series, it's hard to believe one of them shows many crackouts in the pop. report, but another one does not. They probably have similar rates of resubmission. That being said, you can't really count on pop. reports when you're splitting hairs with coins that have similar populations.
Regarding 1870-CC and 1871-CC, I have been saving photos of individual coins for almost 10 years. I have photos of 92 different 1870-CC quarters that I believe are authentic (and are different coins). I have photos of 67 different 1871-CC quarters. I probably need to check these images for sneaky duplicates again at some point, so you can assume there are a couple of errors on my part, but it's clear that 1871-CC is easily tougher than 1870-CC. Many of these coins have shown up multiple times as regrades, crossovers, etc.
Those are cool! I made a thread about those also.
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1096206/age-of-the-ridiculously-large-mint-mark#latest
That's the closest of the listings so far to my actual market findings from 1974 to 1987 when I was actively hunting better date seated (LSCC #140). I'd stick the 42-0 SD, 60-s and 67-s into the top 12. Also the 51-0 and 52-0 into the top 15. I never paid as much attention to post-1855 Philly because the proofs skewed the total pops.,..esp. impaired ones. I just wanted things cut and dry with either early Philly or the O and S mints.
From 1974-1976 I did complete surveys of all seated denominations by listing every Seated Coin that showed up in Coin World, dealer fixed price lists, and major coin auctions. I had listings of thousands of coins. As soon as a date became way too common it was removed from tracking and recording as a multiple of another date. I kept duplicates off the list as well since I recorded sellers as well. The 1853 A/R quarter was the first to get removed after recording about 200 of them. I still have all those surveys. It was pretty clear within the first few months of tracking that the Coin World Trends and Red Book Prices were out to lunch for most anything not considered an expensive key date, coat tail coin, or not having a tiny mintage. So I made up a list of the most affordable sleepers of that period, that were actually buyable and not yet recognized by coin dealers in general......_these were the **"money" dates: 42 LD, 42-0 SD, 47-0, 51, 51-0, 52-0, 60-s, 64-s, 66-s, 67-s, 71-s, 72-s. **_
I avoided the much higher priced dates like 49-0, 53 NA, 55-0, 55-S, 56-S, 57-s, 58-S, 65-S, 78-s, and the rare CC's. I wanted the best value for the buck. And back then the 42-0 SD and 72-s were the hardest to find and easiest to sell. I considered the 67-s the most underrated as no one gave it a second thought. Yet it was as hard to find as the other S mints. The 72-s with a "high" mintage of 83,000 tended to be ignored by the Red Book followers. Even the 67-s with 48,000 mintage was shunned in favor of the large S mint dates which were far more common. The 60-s was ridiculously hard to find back then....much harder than say 64-s or 66-s. While I avoided the rare CC quarters back then, that didn't apply to the 74-cc dime which seemed to be the rarest of all the CC's that had pops > 6. It blew away all the quarters back then except for the 73-cc NA. I only found one 74-cc to buy - damaged too. Also a single 70cc 25c for $150....also damaged and gouged up. It was pretty clear that most of the action was in the quarters. 70-cc and 74-cc halves also showed up as being quite underrated vs the other CC halves. One thing I learned in hindsight that rare and expensive dates like 70-cc to 73-cc quarters is that they changed hands a lot. Their frequency of appearance was skewed to the upside vs. more esoteric dates like 72-s or 67-s. I only wanted to risk my money on sure things.....very low frequency of occurrence along with low prices. The CC quarters didn't fit that bill.
Back then, dealers like Kam Ahwash and Bill Grayson just knew what dates were scarce from handling so many coins from the 50's to early 70's. As a total newbie I had to record actual surveys to figure it out. I ignored mintages and hype. It didn't take very long though. But finding the coins still wasn't easy. I recall the biggest hoard I ever saw hit Coin World was in 1976 from World Wide Coin Investments (JB Searles). They purchased a collection of most of the better date seated quarters on my "hot list" in quantity. By the time I got my Coin World in the mail and called them up.... nearly worthwhile S and O mint on my list was gone. And had they had dozens of them. All they had left was the "disrespected" 1867-s....the "dregs" of the S mints.....lol. Total of 7 pieces in perfect Fine-VF at $55-$75 each. I bought them all. I was sort of impressed on how uniform they all were in appearance and eye appeal. I kept them for around 10 yrs and eventually tired of them barely budging in price. Also had an 1867-s in perfect XF45/AU50 that I had picked up about the same time for $130. Gave that to a friend of mine for $190 around 1987 (doh!) after I picked up the lone gem 1867-s 25c out of Auction '86 (ex-James A Stack).. I recall at about that same time (1988?) Andy Lustig sold me a couple of lustrous XF/AU 1847-0 quarters for $185 each. My only mistake was not keeping them all. LIke anything else "circulated" in the go-go gem era..... they were not making money at that time with the rush to gem type coins, gem dated 20th century, gem gold, and gem commems. Better date circ seated still languished. The irony of it all is that if I had just stayed into the better circ seated that I was initially focused on from 1974....I'd have made about a 20X to 50X increase over the next 40-45 yrs.....without all the gyrations seen in the gem coin markets. Keeping things "simple" and with low risk has its rewards too.
During those early years of the LSCC a lot of those very underrated seated quarters were pulled off the market as fast as they appeared. Many of us were looking for them. I remember in 1975/76 finding a 52-0 quarter in Fine at my local coin shop for $25. It was listed as a 52-P because toning covered over the mint mark. I sold it to Kam within a few weeks for $250. On the other hand, 49-0, 55-0, 55-S to 58-S and some of the rare CC's would linger on price lists....they were not cheap....and in some cases not all that rare. Over time the hoarding must have shifted somewhat. Hoarding in the 70's was no doubt different than the hoarding in the 1980's, 1990's or 2000's. Circ better date seated coinage pricing finally leaped in the early 2000's. Depending on what decade you were looking what was available in better dates was changing. I started writing Keith Zaner in the mid-1980's to update the silly Coin World Trends pricing on better date seated. He took a few of my suggestions. Even then they were still over -focused on mintages, not survival rates. Over the nearly 50 yrs since I started tracking every seated date I don't think the top 10-20 dates in each series have changed all that much.
roadrunner,
Thanks for the information and your insight. I think we all wish we had purchased scarce and rare liberty seated coinage while the prices were low.
Doug
The sad thing is that when prices were too low, I had a hard time locating any of the sleeper dates I wanted to own. I started collecting Seated 25c in the 1990s and promptly quit when I couldn't locate anything outside of common dates without using mail order. When prices started to heat up, people were willing to sell. I really started building my collection around 2008 when prices were much higher, simply because I could get my hands on some of the better coins.
Rethinking my original post, I was using too narrow a definition of "hoarding".
I tend to think of it in extreme examples where someone will buy every example they see, even when the price has been rising.
Like the recent guy who tried to buy every 1909 matte proof Lincoln cent.
But other folks use the word "hoarding" to describe people who buy multiples of what they believe are undervalued coins,
with an exit plan to hopefully sell them when more people recognize the rarity and the price goes up.
Somewhere in between are people who accumulate a large number of examples of multiple dates, to research die varieties.
For example, @MrHalfDime had about 900 seated half dimes in his "reference collection".
And he called his collection of the 1838 V-10 a "mini-hoard" which he used to study the large number of die states; he wrote an article about these die states.
This was the traditional method to study die varieties, before large numbers of detailed auction photos became available on the internet.
I might be considered a "lazy hoarder." I have three 1853 NA quarters because I'm too lazy to sell the two duplicates. I started with a cleaned/retoned F15, bought a PCGS F12 that I don't really like, and then landed a PCGS XF45 OGH that is really nice. What motivation do I have to sell the two duplicates? I can just sit on them and watch their prices creep upwards.
At various times in the past, I owned two 1873-cc Arr. quarters and two 1870-cc quarters. The duplicates were very ugly. In retrospect, I would have done fine if I just put them in the bank for a few more years before selling.