This is not an accented hair Kennedy is it??

Rampage

To me, it looks obviously like the NON accented hair vairtey. Richard.

Is This REALL An Accented Hair Variety??

Bear

Yes, it is an actual AH Kennedy Half Dollar. Bear

relayer

No, it looks more like the hair of disgraced Ohio Congressman James Trificant to me

ldhair

Looks like one. Here is one to compare.

Russ

HMM...how did that escape my radar screen? Yep, it's the real deal. Went for too much for a raw coin, though.

Anybody else think Traficante's hair looks like a rug?

Russ, NCNE

mnmcoin

It is not an accented hair, I repeat not an accented hair. The key is the back hairs above his ears. The one in the first link are not accented, normally you see a clear v shape of the hairs...this in not present. Look at the one in the second link, there is a clear v. Also, I have a tell tale sign for the ah variety that is not there on the first link.

morris <><

Russ

Sorry, Morris, but that coin is certainly the AH variety.

Russ, NCNE

mnmcoin

<< <i> I did not slab it due to cost restraints in not being a bulk slabber, and thus can start the bidding lower than others. >>



Yeah right, you didn't slab it cause it is not ah. That coin looks like a solid 68 or higher and would be worth $100+. You don't have to be a bulk submitter for $15 service which would make it affordable even if the coin came back 67.

I wish I would have seen this before, if the bidder sends the coin in, he is going to be disapointed.



Notice the clear v in the hairs on the above example. The two directly above the ear are the front of the v and the cluster of four or five just behind and above the ear make up the back of the v.

morris <><

ldhair

Here is a non.

Russ

Morris,

His coin IS an Accented Hair. He is just not as good a photographer as you. On the regular variety, the long hair next to the short hair centered above the ear do not exist.



<< <i>That coin looks like a solid 68 or higher and would be worth $100+. >>



There is no way you can tell from his picture what that coin would grade. I can take shots of absolute garbage coins with that type of lighting and make them look great.

Russ, NCNE

DHeath

Russ,

You're right. That coin "IS" an AH. Sorry Morris. BTW - the other indicator I'm aware of is the broken ray reverse. The AH is only from DMR-1, and only known with that reverse. The coin pictured doesn't show the reverse. I'll go look at Wiles book tonight and see if he mentions any additional obverse indicators.

LanLord

isn't the lower seriph on the I in liberty another key indicator on the AH 64 Kennedy? I thought the right seriph was missing on the AH or am I thinking about another series?

Russ

LanLord,

It's actually the lower left serif, and it's not missing completely; just truncated.

Russ, NCNE

ClarkOfKent

I agree that it's an AH.

Russ,
Traficante's hair IS a rug. It was all over the news here, because he had to remove it to be searched when he checked in to begin his sentence. He won't be able to wear it at all when he gets to the federal prison.

Rampage

That coin had no bids this morning before I posted the link. The start bid was $20.99, or something like that. I would not have even paid that for it.

mnmcoin

I would be willing to bet a thousand bucks that coin is not an AH, I can spot them a mile away based on what I thought was a secret and that is the lower left serif of the I in Liberty is basically flat. Look at the coin I put up or any other ah 64 half and compare it the the one in the auction, the one in the auction is clearly present and full. Put that together with the back of the hair is not accented hair and I am 100% sure it is not an ah. I have submitted and sold well over 100 AH Kennedies with complete 100% accuracy. I am not sure why I am so fired up right now, sorry, I guess I am a stubborn old man at the age of 27 already. But from the photos the coin clearly looks non-AH.

I guess we can just agree to disagree.

morris <><

please forgive me for my bullish behavior

Russ

You would lose the grand, Morris. It is not possible to tell from his pic whether or not the serif is truncated, but it is CLEAR that it has the wishbone hair that does not exist in the non AH variety.

Here is a side-by-side comparison.

Russ, NCNE

IrishMike

I don't even own one mnmcoin and when I saw the scan my first reaction was it was accented hair variety. It has the same hair as the one you posted. Maybe it shows up better on my monitor.

ldhair

It's just the scan. If it were in our hand it would be much easier to tell.

66Tbird

AH all the way. Looks just like the half dozen I have.

ldhair

Russ. Look at the serif on the normal serif you posted. The lower right looks almost missing. It's all in the angle the image is taken at. The hair is the only way to tell on the subject coin. has to be AH.

supercoin

Hey, I'll take some of that $1000 action!

DHeath

I'm in for the grand. It is an "AH". I haven't sold hundreds, but I own about a dozen, and Russ is exactly right about the hair.

mnmcoin

Not sure about the hair, doesn't look like any ah i have seen...at least I notice the four or five accented hairs behind the hair are not present on the auction pic at least from the scan on the auction, I agree it could be the scan...but I am going by the tell tale sign of the lower left serif in the I and to me it looks inextricably like it is present. Which on all 100+ ah I have made, the lower left serif is missing.

morris <><

ldhair

It's funny to me that many here will pay so much more for such a small difference in a coin. Including me. I think most people would look at the two coins and call us crazy. I am.

keets

i'd have to agree with the non AH assessment. i have difficulty judging the hair and from the various ways that have been described, i'm not alone. a more reliable diagnostic for me is the lack of a serif on the lower left side of the "I" in liberty. clearly seen in the auction and the one i'm holding in my hand that is designated as such. it would have helped to also have a reverse to view. all that coupled with a lame excuse for not slabbing the coin and the description and poor scan is enough to convince me.

looking in Breen's, he also notes that in the proof sets with the AH half's will be a pointed 9 variety dime. i'll have to pull out my packaged sets and check up on that one. live and learn!!

al h.

. It is not possible to tell from his pic whether or not the serif is truncated, but it is CLEAR that it has the wishbone hair that does not exist in the non AH variety.

funny how differently we see things, russ. i have difficulty discerning the hair detail and you don't see that the serif in question is plainly visible. another good reason for a third party assessment!!

Russ

<< <i>he also notes that in the proof sets with the AH half's will be a pointed 9 variety dime. >>



Yep, and knowing that netted me an AH proof set for $11 a while back. Seller mentioned the dime in the listing, but said nothing about the Kennedy.

BTW, Keets, the half being discussed is the AH variety. Again, it has the wishbone hair. As far as the serif goes, depending on the angle of the coin and lighting when photographed, it's easy enough to make it appear and disappear. It's not possible, however, to make the hair just magically appear unless it's actually there. You can make it disappear, but not appear.

Russ, NCNE

Russ

Okay, here's a side-by-side comparison:



The first is a slabbed Accented Hair, the second is the scan from the auction lightened so the detail is more visible, the last is a non AH variety. It's clear that the coin in the auction is the AH variety.

Russ, NCNE

DanC

Alright - I know you've showed me Russ - but could you please re-post this "serif" area with an arrow or something my feeble little mind can get wrapped around?

I recognize the hair, but I'm missing something on the rest of it.



Also... does anyone have a side-by-side on this "pointed 9" dime?
(told you I was a noob)

DHeath

And finally, in James Wiles Kennedy attribution book on page 63, he says and illustrates that the lower left serif of the I is weak, not missing. I fact, in his illustration, the master die doubling makes the serif appear as a ghost, but is clearly visible. It is just too small to be a good indicator in the auction scan, but the hair above the ear I would spot a mile away.

ldhair

I'm sitting here with a 5 power large loop and a PF 67 AH in a NGC slab. I can make the lower left serif come and go with a change in angle. Straight on it is not there. I think the mirror fields cause this effect. Both serif and the hair are reliable diagnostics.

keets

Russ

not to belabor the point, but what's clear to me from the 3 scans is that the first IS an accented hair, the second isn't an accented hair and the third, while the coin is tilted to give the impression that the serif is missing, enough is showing for me to say non AH. as my winking smiley faced last reply says, this a clear case for a grading service authentication. and i'm not saying i KNOW for sure either way about the auction coin. based on the scans provided, the listing description and my experience, i would say non AH.

am i the only one who thinks it's funny that A.H. are my initials?!?!?!?!?

al h.

Russ

<< <i>but what's clear to me from the 3 scans is that the first IS an accented hair, the second isn't an accented hair >>



You've got to be kidding.

Russ, NCNE

FoxComputers

The serif cutoff looks slightly cutoff and makes it being an AH questionable but the distinctive hair seals the question...

It is an Accent Hair.



-Jason

DHeath

Nice job Jason, you beat me to it. The AH hair is so distinctive that I don't need any other marker (totally unlike the non-AH), but the serif doesn't have to be missing, only weak.

Steve27

The hair looks almost AH to me not quite correct and the serif looks wrong; could this be an altered picture (i.e. a non-AH with the hair ajusted slightly)?

presleyh

i think this is how world war 1 got started. it clearly looks to be ah, maybe the thread could be put on hold until the reverse is available. that should quanitfy the issue.

keets

OK, i see that. but i have a slabbed AH which is brilliant and the hairs which are so obvious aren't as readily visible on the coin i have, so i use the serif which has always been reliable. on the coin i have it is TOTALLY missing. there have been threads in the past relating to this same variety where there has been the same uncertainty with some surprising resuts when slabbed coins were posted.

as i've posted earlier, i'm uncertain and based on my experience i would say non AH. can you guys accept that? i'm willing to accept that your assessment is that it is AH and i'm not begging you to prove to me that it is.

UNCLE!!

al h.

DHeath

ROFLMAO.....Hey Keets and Morris, If it helps, I went back to the safe and looked, and all 9 of mine are totally missing the LL serif, unlike Jason's enlargement. Perhaps it's an early strike, or perhaps it's an altered photo. Peace!

ldhair

Anyone who thinks it's a non, I'll buy all you can get if they have the hair detail like the auction coin. (Up to two truck loads). I'll even pay Red Book price plus.

supercoin

I think the degree of missing serif varies quite a bit, either due to strike or which die is used, I dunno. This one does look unusually well-defined in the enlarged photo. But I'll still take a piece of that $1000 action.

presleyh

hey supercoin, how can you tell if the 72 ike has a proof reverse? (type 2). i would pm but i dont know how

mnmcoin

From my understanding from several of the graders at the three most known services, the accented hair variety is not just designated on the two hairs directly above the ear, which I have seen accented in three different dies that I have noticed, but also on the cluster of four or five hairs above and behind the ear. On the scan these just aren't clearly visible, like the two directly above the head. I do not see how you can clearly make the distinction on this since the scan doesn't show all 7 accented hairs clearly, so you must go to the I in Liberty and I see a clear serif on the I...that is how I made the distinction...through in the fact the coin is pretty darn nice looking and it ain't slabbed. Perhaps I jumped the gun when I was so adament about the designation, but I think a clear case can be made either way, in that a scan can hide lots of things. I just call them the way I see them.

Jason's blown up pictures only highlight the two hairs above his head, which there are coins that i have seen with these hairs detailed on early die strikes on non AH coins. Also the lower left serif looks to be exactly even with upper left serif.

Oh, I don't believe this is how WWI started, just an example of why you can't send a scan into PCGS or NGC and get a coin graded, authenticated and slabbed.

morris <><

mnmcoin

My understanding is that all the dies created for the initial strikes before the change was made from the same hub that had the I missing, so it is not a matter of the serif in I fading away with striking, it simply wasn't there to begin with on the hub and therefore the dies.

morris <><

Russ

Morris,

It is easy to angle the coin so that the cluster behind the ear appears as a single hair, which is what happened with this sellers pic. No regular variety I've ever seen had the long and short hairs forming the left side of the wishbone above the ear - NONE.

As for the truncated serif, again it is simply not a reliable diagnostic from a scan:



Certainly looks like a visible serif on the above, and it is most assuredly an Accented Hair variety.

Russ, NCNE

Bear

If Russ says something is so about a Kennedy Half, then it must be so. I cant guarantee that Russ has personally seen every Kennedy Half ever minted, but I think he is really really close. Bear

DanC

Ouch!

Hey thanks for that pic with the highlights. That really helps.

Especially since I was looking around the eyebrow for something.
Drives home the 'ol "picture is worth a thousand words" thingy huh?

supercoin

presleyh, you can enable PM's in your profile. I'll try to make a post this weekend about the Ike varieties, I finally got some close-up photos a while back, a board member took them for me.

In the meantime -- look at the Earth on the reverse on a 71-S, 72-S, and 73-S business strike. Those are the same as the 1972 Ty1, Ty2, and Ty3 reverses.

Rampage

Looking forward to SUPERCOIN's post on the type twos with the pictures. I did not mean for my post to be a debating match.

To clear up the confusion, I emailed the seller before making this original post. I asked him about the coin. He stated he borrowed the scan from another auction and could not tell the difference. I will copy and paste the email in here later today.

ldhair

Rampage. It was a great thread. I feel everyone had fun trying to prove their point. I'm sure many learned from it.

supercoin

He stated he borrowed the scan from another auction and could not tell the difference.

Ah, that explains the low price.

So I'll take the $1000 action that the coin in the photo is an Accented Hair, and I'll bet $1000 that the coin the buyer gets is NOT.