GTG Half Dime. Grade Posted.
Inspired by the rash of GTGs posted by forum member @TallahasseeCoinClub, I thought I’d post one along the same vein.
Purchased for my 7070 at the Michigan State show in the late 1980’s, from a nice husband/wife dealer from Kansas (I think?), who described it as “MS 60-Cleaned “ and priced it very favorably.
It resided in the album since then and was recently submitted to PCGS.





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4
Comments
Above average Unc.. MS63 at a minimum. Lots of eye appeal, grade will depend on luster which is destroyed by cleaning.
MS details, long ago cleaning possible. It would have to be seen in-hand.
MS63…. I like it!
Tough one. The supposed cleaning is throwing me off.
I'll go with 62.
Nice coin.
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Ms 62ish
Hard to decern if there are any obvious signs of a cleaning but the rev color is too blotchy and inconsistent. My grade is MS details, I'm guessing PCGS said MS62.
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Im gonna go with 64 on this one
UNC Details
MS64
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62PL
My first impression is 63. Lovely looking coin whatever the grade.
63 with nice rim toning.
Nice coin.
In case you are interested, the die pair is V-7 (R-4):
https://sites.google.com/view/clintcummins/half-dime-attribution-guide
62
Lots of good guesses!
As shown now in the opening post, PCGS graded it 63. I was pleased to see that, as I was somewhere in the 58-62 range. But it does have nice color and decent luster, which perhaps nudged it up a bit.
What’s more puzzling to me, is that the above bow mm is about 3 times scarcer than the normal below bow mm variety, and yet the price guide has it valued far lower.
This makes no sense to me.
I could see them valued roughly the same, as perhaps few care about it; but it’s almost like the scarcer variety is being penalized?!
Does anyone have any theories or thoughts on why this would be?
Never trust price guides, as they very seldom correctly evaluate attributions. JMO
I like the coin a lot, Greg. You posted grade before I saw the gtg.
Jim
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Interesting.
My count from the rosters in the 1872-s attribution guide, which avoids counting the same coin twice is:
120 above bow
248 below bow
So I am getting 2x scarcer rather than 3x, but still in the same direction.
My best guess is that the V-4 "micro s and triple punched date" aka FS-101 is a below bow and might be driving some of the higher prices.
This is somewhat correlated with what @jesbroken said. If the observed prices for a popular variety are not separate from the others, it can move the apparent price for non-rare varieties. There are related issues of misattribution (wrong), and non attribution (did not pay for attribution, coin is put in broader category).
Also, if you are basing rarity on reported populations, there is an effect where people are more likely to send a higher priced coin in for grading/attribution. So that will bias the observed populations upward. It is similar to how when a new variety is discovered, people will check for it and report back, and the population increases and it appears less rare.
Thanks @yosclimber; your research is always impeccable.
I was merely looking at the CoinFacts ms63 populations, showing 157 for the below bow variety, and only 50 for the above bow coins. But you’ve also provided some interesting food for thought to help explain the situation.
That’s a beautiful half dime!!!
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