I was outbid on nearly everything I bid on, except this... UPDATE!
Bustman
Posts: 1,911 ✭
Queller Barber Half
Considering the eye appeal and the pedigree I am now wondering why it didn't go for bigger bucks. Has anyone see the coin in hand?
Update:
I have the coin in hand now, and I am honestly very happy with the coin. While there are a few marks here and there, NONE of them stand out or detract from the grade. Not a high end coin for the grade, but a solid mid level 65 technically, with the eye appeal of a 66+.
Considering the eye appeal and the pedigree I am now wondering why it didn't go for bigger bucks. Has anyone see the coin in hand?
Update:
I have the coin in hand now, and I am honestly very happy with the coin. While there are a few marks here and there, NONE of them stand out or detract from the grade. Not a high end coin for the grade, but a solid mid level 65 technically, with the eye appeal of a 66+.
0
Comments
42/92
<< <i>Cleaned and Retoned? >>
Definitely doesn't look that way to me.
<< <i>
<< <i>Cleaned and Retoned? >>
Definitely doesn't look that way to me. >>
Ok, dipped and retoned...
42/92
Very, Very Nice.
<< <i>Cleaned and Retoned? >>
Does not look that way to me in the second set of shots.
<< <i>Cleaned and Retoned? >>
It looks original to me, not dipped or cleaned.
Tom
<< <i>I am on pins and needles too65 SesquiNo worries----------------BigE
Nice Sesqui. Rim tone, nice strike, clean surfaces..... looks like a keeper! Tough to find real nice examples of this coin.
Congratulations!
-----------
etexmike
I viewed the lots at Queller and I had the coin annotated with great color but a good facial hit or hits. I had graded the coin overall 64+ but obviously the buyer at that sale and NGC disagreed. Great looking coin however with orig color as I recall. It brought several hundred more in Heritage than at Queller.
The Queller sale was loaded with a lot of odd looking coins. NGC was very strange with their grading. I felt they graded a bit too liberally on many lots from Queller, esp ones that were lightly cleaned with luster missing. There are a number of seated halves going off in the Signature sale from Queller. I would not be swayed by the Queller Pedigree in any way. Some were great, many were ok, and some were not so great. The "star" came from the color but not the surfaces of the coin.
roadrunner
Thanks for the info. The Heritage auction mentions a few hits on the neck and above the ear in the leaf, but I took the image into photoshop.....blew it up and added contrast to view it better. I don't see anything that looks too harsh for the grade, but it's hard to tell from a picture alone. I guess I'll have to wait and see. Didn't they sell the coin raw at the Stacks auction?
It was a good example of buyers bidding with the idea of getting the highest grade possible. I had bids on 50-100 coins and could only win 7. I made out ok on 5 of those but got whacked on 2 others. In many cases those grades never materialized. Just think, in another 5-10 years a raw coin auction like that will be quite rare in itself.
roadrunner
<< <i>I am on pins and needles too65 SesquiNo worries----------------BigE
BigE - That's a pretty coin and a good price! So many of the Sesquicentennial Commems are just plain ugly, even in MS65/6, that seeing a pretty one like this is a real joy! I won a nice Albany in the same B&M sale.
The pcgs-graded coins mostly did much better coin for coin than the ngc-graded coins. Part of this is market bias toward the slab plastic and partly due to the registry phenomenon. The two best registry sets of mint state barber halves right now are exclusively pcgs, Steve Duckor's and Dale Friend's sets, with mine a distant third. Mr. Hugon was the only other contemporary gem or better set builder I am aware of that obtained BOTH ngc and pcgs coins, but he didn't participate in the registries with his mint state sets to my knowledge. Some of the ngc-graded coins sold for bargain amounts, and I don't begin to think all of the ngc coins were overgraded.
This helps explain why a nice looking coin like the 01 in NGC 65 from the Queller pedigree may well be a beautiful coin that didn't bring super strong money at auction. I personally could use a full gem 01-P half in my set, but getting a coin like the coin in question to cross to pcgs for my registry set is an exercise frought with frustration. Sometimes you can get a coin to cross over, but I've not had great success in the past five years. One can spend a lot of money, time and headache trying to cross a coin and stillhave no success. Therefore, I am one potential bidder that passed on this coin. Other ngc-graded coins went for amounts that surprised me, both high and low. The 1892-O in NGC 68 went just over $100K, the highest of any of the mint state barbers of Mr. Hugon, yes even higher than the MS67 1904-S and the NGC MS 65 1892-O micro O. A coin that still baffles me is the 1897-O NGC 68 Dawson that sold for around $17K or so. That price seems absolutely absurdly low to me, even if the coin were considered overgraded. Perhaps it was a coin everyone expected to sell for more and noone jumped in and paid the money it might otherwise have fetched.
My understanding is that some of the coins in the Hugon sale were fairly recently crossed from NGC to PCGS including the very rare 1896-O in MS66 and the nearly equally rare 1901-S in MS 67. This is a common practice when large auction houses get consignments, and it makes great sense. Better prices can be obtained by coins that are graded and packaged the way the market is most demanding at the time. This is clearly the case right now and the much preferred TPG for auction houses is PCGS hands down for barber halves. The 96-O brought nearly $30K with the buyer's fee but my impression is that the coin was nice but not PQ. If it were a really high-end coin I would have expected the coin to bring close to $50-60K.
Anyway, I think that some of the biggest bargains obtained from Mr. Hugons barber coins came in the purchase of nice NGC-graded coins that were more overlooked and not as many buyers were bidding on them.
I ended up buying six pcgs-graded halves at the sale and the NGC MS69 1906-S half. Time will tell if the latter turns out to be a bargain.
I flipped through the prices and pictures once more and felt much of the same emotions you were. That NGC 69 seemed to cheap. The PCGS MS 68 1892 seemed to be too much. The NGC coins clearly saw holder bias, but now we see that at EVERY auction. And PCGS just won't cross worthy coins. What a shame. In the case of that Queller 1901 half, they would likely never cross such a coin. I mean NEVER. And your frustrations are well taken. To those that purchased only top pop PCGS coins, their efforts continue to be rewarded.
Whether NGC coins break away from PCGS set bias remains to be seen. They may not ever get the recognition they deserve...until the market crashes and registry set fever all but dies off on the high dollar coins (over $2-5K each).
roadrunner
The entire run of mint state barber halves brought with buyer's premium about $1.27 million, the mint state quarters $924K, and the mint state dimes $550K. Thus without the proofs, about $2.6 million for these 230 or so coins.
The coin is properly graded due to the light chatter on the cheek and neck, though I think it's an attractive collector coin. I think the coins which are going for the big bucks are the registry set stuff, and classic coins with upgrade potential.
"Seu cabra da peste,
"Sou Mangueira......."
Thanks for the in depth analysis! I enjoyed reading your take.
Roadrunner,
Take it easy on my coin!
Elcontador,
The price seemed low to me compared with other items I was bidding on went for. And if you can find Barber halves that look like this 1901 for $2500- 2800, please let me know when you have them.... I'll buy them all.
John
GREAT JOB!!!
K S
<< <i>I am on pins and needles too65 SesquiNo worries----------------BigE
Wow, don't see Seaquis looking like that very often. Congrats part two.
I have the coin in hand now, and I am honestly very happy with the coin. While there are a few marks here and there, NONE of them stand out or detract from the grade. Not a high end coin for the grade, but a solid mid level 65 technically, with the eye appeal of a 66+.
Thanks for the pic. I'm with you.....not a huge fan of Barbers. I needed one for my half dollar type set, and this one fits the bill very nicely!