A branch mint proof barber half!
Sunshine Rare Coins
Posts: 2,331 ✭✭✭✭✭
Sunshine Rare Coins
Posts: 2,331 ✭✭✭✭✭
Sunshine Rare Coins
Posts: 2,331 ✭✭✭✭✭
Comments
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(It’s still a really nice coin – just don’t try to “morph” it into something it is not.)
Today, you can forget or ignore what Breen has to say about the subject. It just isn't valid. There were never any "Specimen" coins struck either; that's another made up Breenism.
It continues to amaze me what people will label "prooflike" surface coins.
The group Supertramp comes to mind..."Blinded by the light.."
edited - Manfred Mann is right (whoever that group really was?).
<< <i>"Blinded by the light.." >>
I thought that was Manfred Mann?
<< <i>All these coins UltraHighRelief is posting from the Heritage auctions make me feel deeply skeptical of NGC grading and attibutions. This doesn't look proof - it looks prooflike and dipped to hell. Same thing with that 1893-s dollar and seated half dime Ultra posted earlier. None of these coins would even make it into PCGS plastic, but in NGC holders, they're "7 figure coins." Remember that 1907 high relief "proof" $20 a while back? Same deal there - NGC is real loose with calling coins proof. And no, a sticker wouldn't make me feel any better. Grumble, grumble. >>
saying PCGS wouldn't grade them is naive. Both services have shown themselves to bend over backwards to slab and attribute rarities, problems and all. They NEED them for their population reports to continue their perceived dominance of the rare coin grading market.
here is a telling online brief, outlining just one of the rare coins that have magically been elevated to a different grade in just a few years time:
"One Class I dollar, a PCGS Proof-68 once owned by the Sultan of Muscat (now Oman) and the finest known 1804 specimen (pictured directly above), sold in 1999 to coin dealer David Akers, who reportedly bought it for a private collector. The price was $4.14 million, the second most ever paid for any individual coin through a public auction (the most was for a 1933 Saint-Gaudens twenty dollar gold piece, which sold for $7.59 million in 2002). The same coin had earlier been graded Proof-65 by Q. David Bowers.
Another Class I 1804 dollar, a PCGS Proof-67 once owned by the King of Siam (now Thailand), sold as part of the King of Siam 11-coin set for $1.82 million in 1993, for more than $4 million in 2001, and most recently for $8.5 million in 2005 to Rare Coin Wholesalers. The same coin had previously been graded Proof-65 by both PCGS and Q. David Bowers.
The PCGS Proof-64 Dexter specimen, another Class I dollar, sold for $1.84 million at Stack's 65th anniversary auction in 2000. The same coin had previously been graded Proof-63 by Q. David Bowers.
The Adams-Carter specimen, graded Proof-58 by PCGS, sold in August 2003 for $1.2 million through Bowers and Merena. The same coin sold just two years earlier for $874,000. Reportedly, during the time the Carter family owned the coin, from 1950 to 1984, Amon Carter Jr. occasionally carried it unprotected in his pocket, which caused the wear.
The Adams-Carter coin is currently graded Proof-58 by PCGS, but in the past it was graded Proof-50 by NGC and before that Proof-45 by PCGS. To PCGS's own graders, the coin improved an astonishing 13 points in quality over time. PCGS contended that it graded the coin as it most recently did because previous graders didn't account for its weak strike. But Q. David Bowers, Walter Breen, and Eric P. Newman and Kenneth E. Bressett had all graded it extremely fine as well. A considerably more likely explanation is that this coin is just another example of how the grading "standards" of the grading services are anything but consistent over time and how they treat rare coins or coins with provenance more leniently than other coins.
NGC recently engaged in two similar acts of blatant overgrading. It graded the Berg-Garrett specimen, a Class III 1804 dollar not pictured here, Proof-55. This is a whopping 15 points higher than everyone else had graded it. Q. David Bowers graded it EF-40 in his 1993 book Silver Dollars and Trade Dollars of the United States: A Complete Encyclopedia. Walter Breen graded it EF in his 1988 book Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins. Eric P. Newman and Kenneth E. Bressett graded it extremely fine in their 1962 book The Fantastic 1804 Dollar. When it was last sold, in 1980 as part of the Garrett sale, it was also graded EF-40. Before NGC graded it Proof-55, ANACS had graded it, also EF-40.
Similarly, NGC graded the Mickley-Hawn-Queller Class I dollar (pictured at the top of this page) Proof-62, whereas Eric P. Newman and Kenneth E. Bressett graded it "very nearly uncirculated," Walter Breen "EF-AU, poorly cleaned," and Q. David Bowers Proof-50.
These sleight-of-hand grading tricks with 1804 dollars by the legitimate grading companies may boost the selling prices of these coins, and they may create an incentive for those selling these kinds of coins to submit them for treatment like this, but they don't reflect well on the grading services or numismatics. On the other hand, official and unofficial trickery has always been a part of numismatics in this and other ways."
Btw, the fabric of this coin really reminds of P-L 91-O quarters. Not sure why.
I thought that was Manfred Mann?
Original by Bruce Springsteen.
Senior Numismatist
Legend Rare Coin Auctions
Until I call a New Orleans Barber half a specimen (there was a 98-0 being touted as such for the past 35 years as well that was not even close) it better be fully struck on the right half of the reverse and claws and have sharp raised edges and reeding, just like a real Philly proof of that era. These are not bust or seated halves, but Barbers. I don't give them any leeway for strike. In the photo provided the edges look beveled and the reeding rounded.
Ok, I get it now. Specimen still means mint state, but better than the typical early proof like strikes. What do they call that in Morgans, PL or DCAM? The lid is off on the MS proof like Specimen market. You're going to start seeing a lot more early strikes called specimen. Would make more sense to me if they called them Proof likes or something...not specimens. Specimens were intended for special purposes and if that was the case in 1892-1915, the strike should be full. How many of the Proof branch mint-morgans have incomplete reverse strikes and incomplete star points like this 92-0 half?
roadrunner
There are thousands of nice proof-like coins out there, but no more than a handful can be associated with either special treatment or a documented event. Sellers have a long and ignominious history of attempting to attach some sort of special status to a coin in order to increase the price. This hasn’t changed, which makes it important for buyers to be able to judge the coin on its merits – not the “story.”
I'm tracking the SP - and wonder who will step up to the plate on it.
Nice coin - but too $$$$$ for me.
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