For Frankie Feinds Only (Coinguy1 and Russ included) Now including wise obvservations by Coinguy1

FC57Coins

In another thread about 1950 Franklins Russ was kind enough to post a 1950 Satin Proof being sold on Teletrade. Thinking that I had not taken a picture of my 1949S since I got it back from NCS/NGC, I decided to take one and put it up against the 1950 proof. Now, obviously, having taken only one of the pictures, it doesn't seem like a fair match, but I enjoyed looking at both and thought you guys (including Mark and Russ) might too

bushmaster8

apples and oranges cus' the difference in pix quality makes the comparison skewed.

but always a pleasure to see that 49-s!

FC57Coins

<< <i>apples and oranges cus' the difference in pix quality makes the comparison skewed >>



Yup - you're right - gonna have to get myself one of those 1950 joberdoobies.

Stuart

Frank: I haven't seen your 1949-S Franklin before, but it looks like a PL if such a thing exists in a Franklin ?? It's a very well struck and pretty Franklin... Is it a condition census coin or at least a rare condition coin?

FC57Coins

Good questions Stuart. 49S' are one of the few Franklins that have been recognized as prooflike. There are a couple of other dates that also have recognized prooflikes, but the 49S is the most noted by Ehrmantraut in his book. This is a very unusual coin in that as soon as you look at it, you know it's different. There have been several stories that I've heard about why these coins came out this way, but thus far I haven't been able to verify any of them.

The first one goes that Nellie Tayloe Ross, the mint director at the time, was particularly fond of the Franklin half as her pet project. This we know. The story goes that to help inaugurate minting of the half at San Francisco in 1949, she requested to have anywhere from 20-200 pieces made to give out at a dinner in honor of the event. I've tried to verify this fact through several sources, but unfortunately I've come up empty.

The second story is that the mint, in preparation for the start of proof coinage in 1950, began experimenting with different ways of preparing dies for this process and actually used some of the eperimental dies to mint a few (unknown quantity) coins. If you look at this coin, you notice that the dies used to make this coin just werent casually polished, they polished the hell out of them. Hence the reflective fields. In addition, you can also tell that the die was in an early state, because there is some mild frosting to the devices, particularly on the reverse.

Whatever the story is, I hope to one day be able to verify it. For now, it remains a very interesting and eye catching Franklin. It's been graded MS66FBL by PCGS and MS66*FBL (the only 49S to receive this grade) by NGC.

Kennewickman

FC57Coins,

I figured you might know the answer to a couple questions.

What ever happened to Jack Ehrmantraut?

Did he publish anything other than An Analysis of Gem Franklin Half Dollars?

thanks

wally

FC57Coins

Wally - Unfortunately someone told me that Ehrmanntraut passed away and never published another book. I guess the torch has been passed to Rick Tomaska

coinguy1

Frank, the 1949-S business strike looks more like a Proof than the 1950 Proof (which looks like a business strike to me).

Stuart

Frank: So, your 1949-S Franklin was likely struck from dies polished and prepared as proof dies, but likely only single struck, rather than double struck as are official proofs.

Thanks for the information. That's a very interesting story!! I'll have to add the 1949-S Franklin to my PL radar screen at coin shows. According to my handy RedBook that coin appears to be the key date in the Franklin series.

Does Lucy Bop have 1949-S envy over your coin, or does she also have one of the 1949-S PL's ?? Thanks Again!!

FC57Coins

Stuart - there are a few PL's out there, but you don't see them very often. I've never seen one at a coin show, though I've heard of people acquiring examples at coin shows before - hopefully I'll run into another one some day. The example that I have is probably one of the best and it used to belong to one of our board members. - Lucy has nothing to be jealous about - she's got more coins than you can shake a stick at