Seated Half guys

GAB

Not knowing much about these, except that I liked the look and date, I picked this up today.
I Have a Beistle book that identifies it as an 2 B. Anyone have any idea as to a rarity for these?

Unknown

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GAB

Trick photography!

Walkerguy21D

I have a micro O also, I'm thinking from the Wiley-Bugert reference it may be an R4 (going from memory). You can check it out more thoroughly yourself by going to David Lawrence/Stella Coin News, click on reference books, find the W-B seated half book, and then the date/mint mark analysis section. Enjoy!

GAB

WalkerGuy,
Thanks for the input. I will be checking that out shortly!

CircOnly

Yep, looks like a WB-103 from that site. An R4 in VF. Not sure if those rarity ratings are still accurate, but a nice resource.

rhedden

The 1840-o WB-103 with shattered reverse pictured is somewhat scarce, but its "coolness" exceeds its rarity. Here is a pic. of mine, and a link to another recent thread about them on the LSCC forum.




link to LSCC thread

STONE

One of these recently ended on eBay with a very similar appearance!

roadrunner

The 40-0's often appear a lower grade than they technically are due to strike weakness, esp. on the reverse.
With that much luster remaining I'd be tempted to call it a VF30 or better. Every ne I ever pick up is a large O.

roadrunner

Southcounty

The old WB-103 is a really neat coin and the reverse die cracks are super cool. It was usually called the small O variety with both a very small O mintmark variety and multiple large O mintmark reverses. In Bill Bugert's new book on the early New Orleans half dollar varieties it is designated as a WB-10 with Obverse 4 and Reverse F. I am two die marriages away from a complete die marriage set for the 1840-O seated halves and while some of the large O die marriages are very rare this variety, while fairly common, is still one of the most visually interesting.

I have seen this coin in both a later die state than the coin in the original post and some in various earlier die states. It is almost always found with a cracked reverse.

My first photo is my AU58 in an old ANACS small white holder that is a slightly earlier die state.
The two additional photos are of two separate prime uncracked reverses, which Bill Bugert states are extremely rare.

GAB

Thanks for all the info guys. This is my first Seated Lib Half, and I will probably submit it to PCGS as one of my "freebies".
After looking through the Heritage archives, I would expect it to grade at VF35 - with a chance at XF40 on a good day, since it does
have quite a bit of luster left on it.

I was impressed with the amount of research information available on the David Lawrence site. I didn't even know it existed prior
to this post.