Bust Halves...Recent Flood

quickwing

Noticed 165 Bust 50C auctioned by Heritage Sun & Tues, Teletrade had 10 in their last 3 auctions this past week, and uncountable amount (or alot anyway) on eBay. Someone is slabing ANACS Bust like a mint??? Except eBay's cleaned, whizzed, and altered raw busts. I expect to see some NEWPs shown soon. Who's dumping?
Come on now and don't be shy.

GoldenEyeNumismatics

There seems to be a lot of interest in them lately

coinlieutenant

I sold the remainder of my choice AU's in Goldbergs sale...

mepot

There has been alot of ANACS 'problem' slabs on Heritage lately,but if you look you can find a few

nice ones.Seems like with the series becoming more popular,prices on even problem coins are going up.

I'm not dumping though,I'm still bargain hunting.Not easy lately.

Cladiator

Bust halves, especially those in AU have been doing nothing but rocketing for at least the past year. Something happened and the general populace of the hobby realized they were cool. Kind of brought a commercialization aspect to bust halves that they didn't really have before. Some might think that's good and some might think it's bad. You know when someone like Sperber announces to the world that she's looking for 500 of them and will pay the best money available for PQ ones that the coins have officially become commercially popular. Bust halves are the "next big thing", like it or not.

Good time to sell, not the best time to buy...in my personal opinion.

AnkurJ

I bought a reeded edge bust half for my 7070 from Teletrade. Its been cracked out already :-)

AJ

mozin

<< <i>I sold the remainder of my choice AU's in Goldbergs sale... >>

And I did not win any, but I was underbidder on one.

coinlieutenant

Sorry to hear that Mozin. You should have kept bidding!

robkool

I picked up a nice 1826 a few years ago for about $ 80 bucks. Had it submitted to PCGS just recently, and it came back in an AU 55. Great find too...

291fifth

I'll bet hoards are coming to market now that the prices are up. Watch out, though. These coins are not rare.

OKbustchaser

<< <i>Bust halves, especially those in AU have been doing nothing but rocketing for at least the past year. Something happened and the general populace of the hobby realized they were cool. Kind of brought a commercialization aspect to bust halves that they didn't really have before. Some might think that's good and some might think it's bad. >>



People interested in selling them might think that it is good...most of the old-time bust collectors that I know wish the general interest would JUST GO AWAY!!! Let us continue to buy and trade these things amoung ourselves at prices which don't begin to represent their actual scarcity. Nice AU's that two years ago I could buy for a couple or three hundred bucks now routinely go for eight hundred to a thousand. GURRRRRRRRR!!!

Nysoto

Collector demand has driven up prices on bust halves. Many new collectors have started collecting bust halves by date, Redbook, and variety. The prices for circulated bust halves of nice quality for the grade will continue to be strong. The demand, except for AU58, is not speculative.

Baley

I assume we're talking about 1825-1836 widget bust halves, not the pre-1814 better dates and certainly not pre-turbs, right?

Elcontador

A disturbing number of Unc. CBHs I've seen in the last last few years have, to be kind, what I would refer to as "questionable color." Most people buying these coins don't seem to care, because they are 'pretty.'

cape

well, this certainly is a hot series as im just back from long beach and the true pq eye appeal bust halfs in au 58 are selling for above ms 63 money. i just bought some real beautys from mike prince at whitlows, as a collector came to his table and im really happy mike offered them to me.

jamesfsm

The market for PCGS eye appealing AU55-AU58's will continue to rise while I suspect coins graded by ICG, ANACS and especially NGC will be all over the map because of mixed quality at the AU58 level by those services. PCGS has a VERY different "look" for an AU58 CBH than anybody else does and consistently so. A PCGS 58 often does look like the vaunted "MS63 with rub" we all hear about. So, I would expect a two-tiered market with PCGS high AU's going onward and some rejection or at least suspicion of other TPG's once newbies realize that all AU's are not graded equally.

Cherrypickers like dealer Dick Osburn seem to have a knack for locating non-PCGS CBH's that are close to or meet PCGS standards. I suspect that Mr. Osburn scours through an absolute ton of CBH's to get his largely non-PCGS inventory in place. It can be done.

ttown

Well there certainly a lot of problem coins on the market right now. Finding nice problem free coins to build a year set is diffcult. I collect in the VF/XF range and these coins are still affordable with only one key coin the 1815 that you'll have to spend 3k-5k for a nice example, of course the 1807 is going to cost you over a grand now but it's still under valued IMO, I agree with "Bust Half Fever" that this year mintage were way over stated and are still a bargin for a problem free example.

Really nice problem free coins from 1807-1814 with nice strikes are hard to find but aren't really that high in high VF grades. The 1820 is a bargain at these prices if you can find one and the 1821-1823 are cheap and harder to find in circulated grades than most realize. From about 1824-1836 there everywhere and those prices reflect it. The day may be passing for the AU up stuff but the solid mid-grades are still in range for collectors but in a few years that may not be the case IMO.