Here's a new piece/upgrade for my set - 1843-O Half Dollar

Catbert · July 12, 2025 11:55AM

I began my seated half collecting journey focusing on the 22 New Orleans coin segment since this could be an aggressive bite to determine whether I wanted to collect the entire 113 coin registry set (I don't think I'll ever complete). My original focus was on finding AU examples, but I quickly discovered that I needed to consider all grades to find the quality I want. It's been a challenge, to say the least and I'm okay with VF to MS coins in my set.

I've since decided to collect other dates as well, but wanted to share this upgrade for the 43-O date. First, here's what it replaced:

This AU53 graded coin is attractive, but if you look closely at @robec 's pics, you see that it's been cleaned, most obviously in the obverse fields. If one looks up the TV pic, it isn't evident. So, when Fortin held his auction of the wonderful Newtown collection of seated halves earlier this year, I was fortunate to win several halves and targeted this one to replace my cleaned example.

The upgrade, a MS63 CAC, is a very nice replacement:

This date isn't easy to find nice. The CAC pop shows 37 total, 8 at 63, with 2 finer. WB-17 with double punched date along with die cracks within HALF DOL.

Of course, the trade off between the two coins was not just condition and strike quality, but the significant acquisition price differential. One must factor in the infrequent opportunity as well in deciding whether to step up. While I'm poorer, I'm glad I did.