Pedigree found for barber half in registry set...

DrPete

Recently I was fortunate to purchase the 1899-O Barber half dollar in PCGS MS 65 from the Jung Collection sold at auction by ANR. I compared the coin to examples in several auction catalogs in my library and found that the Queller coin was a perfect match. On the obverse I found the toning at six and twelve o'clock to be a match, a thin linear scratch across the neck to match, a small mark in front of the portrait to match; and on the reverse the lack of toning for most of the coin and the tiny patch of toning above the eagle's left wing matches. Striking characteristics throughout are also identical.

With so many points of identity I conclude that it is the same coin. The Queller auction catalog lot description gives further provenence of the coin to the Patten Collection auctioned in 1973. That gives me a pedigree going back to 1973. I hope to someday snag a copy of the Patten auction and see if a source for the coin is given.

I find chasing a pedigree like this to be of great fun and is part of what I really enjoy about collecting. I can't help but note the similarity of this type of puzzle-solving with my career path as a pathologist. Particularly, when we have a medical examiner case requiring dental records to identify the deceased, we look for mutliple points of identity between the postmortem x-rays and dental films taken during life.

Perhaps a bit of a grizzly comparison, but lots of people now watch TV shows such as CSI and seem to really enjoy forensic work.

scher

Thats pretty cool..I have done that on a few of mine as well and have started doing a better job of storing and tracking old catalogs for this purpose down the road...Pete on another note I have admired your sets for some time...nice piece of work to be sure..
Bruce Scher

Steve27

That's a super piece of detective work, but where did you get the original idea that this coin might have significant provenance?

tradedollarnut

I absolutely love going back thru old auction catalogs searching for lost provenance on my coins. That's how I discovered my 1838 Gobrecht was the Amon Carter coin! Very fulfilling!

SethChandler

Very exciting. People have always said that the thrill of the hunt is one of the best things about collecting. But in this case you get a "double" hunt. First, you aquire the coin, secondly, you locate the pedigree. Way cool.

Seth

DrPete

Steve,

You ask what makes me even consider tracking down a pedigree on a particular coin?

One thing I've noticed about gem barber halves, there aren't that many of them. So whenever a new one comes to me I figure it's worth trying to track it down. Unfortunately, some coins get dipped and that loses toning characteristics as a diagnostic and ruins a toned coin for a long time/forever. Also, as one hunts down coins from older auctions, the photographs are more variable in quality, and not all coins were photographed.

My "best" pedigree identification was my 1904-S barber half that came from the Norweb collection. It was not attributed when I bought it. My big clue was the description of a different coin in the Price Collection auctioned by David Akers. In the lot description he mentions that he has seen only three other true gem 04-S halves in his long hunting of barber halves. The James Stack specimen, the Norweb specimen, and the Eliasberg coins are the others mentioned. The whereabouts of the Stack and Eliasberg specimens were known to me. That left only the Norweb coin. The original auction catalog illustrating the Norweb coin is OK but is black and white and somewhat grainy. I feel very fortunate that the provenence on that coin was a match. It was later brought to my attention that my coin had previously been slabbed with the pedigree which was later intentionally removed. Some dealers and collectors don't like pedigrees as they may indicate a specific auction and selling price that they don't want potential customers to know about.

I plan to continue searching auction catalogs as I am sure I still have pedigrees yet to be discovered in my set.