1853 No Arrows Half Dime did graded
Smittys
Posts: 9,876 ✭✭✭✭✭
Smittys
Posts: 9,876 ✭✭✭✭✭
Smittys
Posts: 9,876 ✭✭✭✭✭
Comments
Whoa - with the coveted AU58 grade to boot - well done!
Very nice!
Very nice coin and a coin that is market hot right now.... Cheers, RickO
That is a very sweet H10C!
BST transactions: dbldie55, jayPem, 78saen, UltraHighRelief, nibanny, liefgold, FallGuy, lkeigwin, mbogoman, Sandman70gt, keets, joeykoins, ianrussell (@GC), EagleEye, ThePennyLady, GRANDAM, Ilikecolor, Gluggo, okiedude, Voyageur, LJenkins11, fastfreddie, ms70, pursuitofliberty, ZoidMeister,Coin Finder, GotTheBug, edwardjulio, Coinnmore, Nickpatton, Namvet69,...
Ron Guth: The total mintage for all 1853 Half Dimes was over 13 million pieces, an enormous increase over any previous year. The reason for this increase was a change in the laws that reduced the weight of the Half Dimes. This meant that all of the old silver coins still in circulation were worth more than their face value, thus they needed to be recalled and reminted at the new, lower weight. To denote the weight change, the Mint added arrows on either side of the date, making it easy for anyone to quickly identify the new coins versus the old. However, before this change was made, a very small number of 1853 Half Dimes were minted using the old standard and, of course, without the arrows at the date. The official mintage for the No Arrows 1853 Half Dime stands at 135,000, less than one-tenth the mintage of the 1853 With Arrows. This gives the 1853 No Arrows Half Dime the second lowest mintage of any Seated Liberty Half Dime date, regardless of the originating mint -- only the1847 has a smaller mintage. This low mintage does not translate directly into a high value, however, because sufficient numbers survived (saved by collectors?) to keep the pricing at a reasonable level. In my opinion, this is one of the best values in the Half Dime series.
Mint State 1853 No Arrows Half Dimes are scarce, but not rare, and they usually appear in MS63, followed by MS64. Gems are very rare, though about a dozen MS65 and MS66 examples (combined) exist. The finest example is a single PCGS MS68.
http://www.pcgscoinfacts.com/Coin/Detail/4351
BST transactions: dbldie55, jayPem, 78saen, UltraHighRelief, nibanny, liefgold, FallGuy, lkeigwin, mbogoman, Sandman70gt, keets, joeykoins, ianrussell (@GC), EagleEye, ThePennyLady, GRANDAM, Ilikecolor, Gluggo, okiedude, Voyageur, LJenkins11, fastfreddie, ms70, pursuitofliberty, ZoidMeister,Coin Finder, GotTheBug, edwardjulio, Coinnmore, Nickpatton, Namvet69,...
Nice coin
I was reading the post by oih82w8, in which he attempts to answer Afford’s question about the 1853 No Arrows half dime, quoting Ron Guth from the Coinfacts website as follows:
“The official mintage for the No Arrows 1853 Half Dime stands at 135,000, less than one-tenth the mintage of the 1853 With Arrows. This gives the 1853 No Arrows Half Dime the second lowest mintage of any Seated Liberty Half Dime date, regardless of the originating mint -- only the1847 has a smaller mintage.”
I don’t know what mintage figures Coinfacts was using to make such a statement, but this statement is patently false. [Please understand that my criticism here is of the source (Coinfacts), and not with Oih82W8, who merely quoted the source.] The published mintage of the 1853 (P) No Arrows half dime is, as stated, just 135,000. But to state that “this is the second lowest mintage of any Seated Liberty half dime date, regardless of the originating mint – only the 1847 has a smaller mintage” completely ignores the facts. First, the mintage of the 1847 half dime is given as 1,274,000 – hardly a small mintage. Indeed, this ranks as one of the higher mintages for the series. Secondly, it completely ignores the decidedly smaller mintages of the following dates:
1867-S 120,000
1868 79,200
1838-O 70,000
1864 48,470
1846 27,000
1863 18,460
1865 13,500
1866 10,725
1867 8,625
Not to mention the 1870-S, with a presumed mintage of just one coin.
This total distortion of the facts now makes me question the validity and accuracy of any such information presented by Coinfacts. Always question and double check any so-called ‘facts’ that you find in numismatic research.
For sure.
I would gladly trade my 1847 for an 1846!
I didn't think the 1847 was the lowest mintage Half Dime, but it's not my series so I didn't say anything.
Thanks for the info MrHalfDime.
You can't rely just on mintages. I always felt in the 1970's and 1980's that the 1853 NA was somewhat hoarded and over-priced...maybe because it was linked to the truly scarce 53 NA quarter. The dime was over-rated as well.
The 1840-0 wd, 40wd, 41-0, 42-0 and some of the 1860's S and P mints were better values to me. Some of these had 2X to 3X the mintage of the 53 NA. The 53 NA half dime is fairly available in choice and gem unc too despite the low mintage. The 1867-s has the same mintage...but quite a bit tougher in gem unc. 52-0 half dime and others have higher mintages yet are probably scarcer, especially in XF and better. The 53-0 NA has a higher mintage than the 53 NA....and those 2 aren't close. Philly numismatists probably saved a higher % of 1846 and 1853 NA half dimes vs. other higher mintage coins.
If you use the very common 1853 arrows or arrows and rays coinage as your common denominator for rarity of lower mintage dates, you'll probably end up with a poor conclusion. Those coins were so common they circulated into the 1900's. The quarters could still be seen in change in the 1940's (Breen). When evaluating seated rarity, I'd focus on the top 1/2 to 3/4 of the series when making comparisons.
When I started in 1974 an XF 1853 NA half dime had a Coin World Trends price of $75. The 1840-0 wd was $55 and the 1840 wd $25. An 1867-s quarter was $85 in XF. You can guess what coins I spent my money on. I was able to land a hoard of VF 1867-s quarters for $55-$75 each and an XF45 for $135. I accumulated a lot of 1840-0 and P half dimes. I never once found a 53 NA half dime or dime worthy of buying. They are probably scarcer in choice VF-AU than I first thought....but still not up to level of a 40-0 wd. Collectors still get a bit mesmerized by low mintages from the 1800's. It just doesn't always measure the true scarcity.
There is a lot of great info in CoinFacts. And great photos, too. But, yes, it will have some mistakes.
I think any ambitious compilation of a large quantity of info is likely to have some non-zero error rate.
Breen's Encyclopedia is also an example of this phenomena, although some of its errors like rarity estimates were the best known at the time and became outdated.
A nice thing about CoinFacts is that it can be corrected fairly quickly, so errors don't tend to propagate as they might when a printed book is possessed by many people.
As @MrHalfDime noted, it's always wise to check facts.
Especially when the mintages are right there in the Red Book.
I also have them on my website, which I use when the book is not at hand (although my pages may be a bit hard to read and have their own quirks - for example, sometimes I inconsistently swap quantity minted with quantity known).
https://web.stanford.edu/~clint/q/index.htm
It is so strange that 1847 is quoted as a low mintage date, so I wonder how this error came about!
1847 is not low mintage in any Seated denomination.
My best guess is that it's a typo for 1846, with the qualifier "of any Stars type" (as this would exclude the Civil War dates and the 1838-O).
CoinFacts is out to lunch on a lot of estimates of surviving seated populations. I went through the seated quarter estimates a couple years back and there were lots of errors. I'd imagine the other denominations are off as well. I have no idea who came up with the surviving numbers extant.
And I remember this
"The 1853 No Arrows half dime is an example of the Valentine V1 die marriage, the only Philadelphia die marriage for the date with no arrows. However, what makes it doubly interesting is that it is a very early die state (VEDS) of this die marriage, with none of the die cracks described by Valentine in his 1931 reference. Even in his earliest described die state (V1) he mentions "Faint die breaks shows (sic) at top of UNI of UNITED and MER of AMERICA". Later die states (V1a) exhibit a die crack from the left stem to the rim, and another die crack from A2 of AMERICA to the rim. And on the obverse, a die crack develops at the base of the date, connecting the base of all four digits. These later die states comprise most of the examples seen, making this VEDS relatively scarce. Although our host may not endow it with a grade, specialists (like myself) might show interest in it, even with the rim ding."
.
.
Looks like a typo of 1847 when it should have been 1846, plus should have been clarified as applying to the Stars Obverse type only. Also the 135,000 mintage is about 1 percent of 13,000,000, not 10 percent. CoinFacts is still an ongoing work in progress.
Is there a place to notify them of corrections? I have seen a number of them scattered about.
.
.
"To Be Esteemed Be Useful" - 1792 Birch Cent --- "I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain." - Lily Tomlin
Some very important and valid points made by both yosclimber and roadrunner regarding the Coinfacts write up, and also by WinloseWin "Looks like a typo of 1847 when it should have been 1846, plus should have been clarified as applying to the Stars Obverse type only", but I cannot accept the latter's rationalization for the error. I went through the same mental process after first reading the cited Coinfacts quote, attempting to see how such an error could have been made. It is easiest to assume a simple typo - typing in 1847 instead of 1846. But this argument can quickly be discarded when Coinfacts prefaced it with the comment “this is the second lowest mintage of any Seated Liberty half dime date, regardless of the originating mint – only the 1847 has a smaller mintage”. It then became a moot point to argue "[it] should have been clarified as applying to the Stars Obverse type only." No, this is their multiple error, and as such it needs to be pointed out and corrected. Perhaps, as WinloseWin asks, there may be an avenue to communicate such errors to the author, but they do need to be corrected.
I had lunch just yesterday with a respected fellow forum member, and between specialized half dime discussions, we also discussed some of the great new literature available on the subject. As part of that discussion, we noted the imperative need for accuracy in any printed information, as collectors come to rely on such sources. Certainly Coinfacts is not considered an in-depth, specialty reference relied upon by specialists. Specialists would more likely tend to rely on original sources, or on specialty publications like the John Reich Journal or the Gobrecht Journal, or the specialty references for half dimes and other denominations. But for general information, Coinfacts may be relied upon by general collectors or others seeking fundamental info on a series. And if this information is incorrect, the problem will be perpetuated unless or until it is corrected. I do not want to appear unnecessarily harsh on this subject, but my experience has been that once anything appears in print, it becomes almost impossible to have it removed, as in the case of an error.
I hadn't even noticed the additional error "Also the 135,000 mintage is about 1 percent of 13,000,000, not 10 percent." Nice catch, and further fodder for the above argument. One has to wonder how many additional errors appear in Coinfacts.
I hadn't even noticed the additional error "Also the 135,000 mintage is about 1 percent of 13,000,000, not 10 percent." Nice catch, and further fodder for the above argument. One has to wonder how many additional errors appear in Coinfacts.
Maybe an entire thread on this topic would help. We can add in attribution errors too
.
.
I looked at it as multiple errors also. Whatever their intention might have been, if the statement had read as follows it would have been true for the CoinFacts category of "Type 3, Stars on Obverse" which is where they have this issue placed. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit assuming they were referring to the mintages as being just within that subtype.
.
.
More accurate statement would be:
"This gives the 1853 No Arrows Half Dime the second lowest mintage of any Stars Obverse Seated Liberty Half Dime date, regardless of the originating mint -- only the 1846 has a smaller mintage."
.
.
"To Be Esteemed Be Useful" - 1792 Birch Cent --- "I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain." - Lily Tomlin
Wow, score!! I never would have submitted that one for fear of the rim ding. Shows what I know.