Comments requested on this half dime (big pics)
RGT
Posts: 508 ✭✭
I'd like some opinions on this coin.
What would you guess the grade to be?
What can you tell me about the variety?
What kind of price range should this go for?
I'm not interested in selling, just finding out more about it. It's a fairly recent purchase.
What would you guess the grade to be?
What can you tell me about the variety?
What kind of price range should this go for?
I'm not interested in selling, just finding out more about it. It's a fairly recent purchase.
0
Comments
Grade? I'd say EF45 to AU50, tending toward the latter, but I'm having trouble deciding what's soft strike and what's wear.
Price? I'll leave that to somebody else.
The doubling is pretty interesting.
First off, nice coin & great pics! This is one of those instances where the obverse looks AU58 & the reverse looks MS64. It looks like it was lightly circulated from the obverse fields. Not to sure.... Again, nice coin.
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
Tom
Notice the doubling on top of UNITED? Diagnostic characteristic for this. Probably at least a Rarity 5 coin. Maybe Rarity 6 in this condition.
You'll have to wait til Steve Crain comes back to get real in depth info. I'm not into the Seated Half Dimes.
Ray
Based on photo I grade Ms-61
'Tis the risk one runs by being the first in posting to a "grade this coin" thread.
I should've known most of what I was looking at was flat strike.
NoEbayAuctionsForNow
After I received the coin I checked it out in Blythe's book on half dimes to discover it was a V-6 with what he called a doubled obverse. He also says it is a recently discovered variety, but since the book was printed in 1992 I was hoping more was known about it by now, such as rarity rating.
It seems there are 3-4 different varieties of 1861/0 but I can't find any information about the differences. The TPGs don't distinguish them beyond the overdate description. It also seems that many believe it's not really an overdate but a blundered date punch.
I guess this was a bit of a cherry pick in that I knew it was an 1861/0 when I bid, but it was sheer luck that it was the V-6 variety. As for the grade, this is not the ugly coin that you typically think of when you hear MS60. I think the coin is quite attractive despite the marks in the fields. Just shrink the picture down to half dime size and see if you can still see them.
lathmach, you were dead on with this one and nailed it in only 11 minutes from the time I posted. You either know more about these than you let on or you were sitting on your reference books when you read the post.
Thanks for the inputs and feel free to add more info or comments.
Thanks.
Edited to fix the pictures.
K S
1861/0 is NOT rare, though it is well promoted & commands an unjustified mkt. premium.
K S
Your half dime is a nice example of what is perhaps one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the collecting public. Sometime in the 1970's, that 'variety' (I prefer the term die marriage) was identified from the obverse die, with what appeared to be a repunched numeral in the date. On certain examples, it can appear, with a little imagination, to be a 1 struck over a 0. In subsequent years, minor debate has arisen over the true nature of the 'repunching'. In my opinion, DorkKarl is right on the money with his comment "1861/0 is NOT rare, though it is well promoted & commands an unjustified mkt. premium." In the Gobrecht Journal, quarterly journal of the Liberty Seated Collectors Club, noted researcher and numismatist Tom DeLorey wrote a convincing article in which he revealed that ALL half dime obverses dated 1861 showed the same characteristic on the fourth digit of the date!! Under close microscopic study, he determined that ALL examples of the 1861 half dimes exhibited, to a greater or lesser degree, this same characteristic, and it was due to a defective numeral 1 punch, and not a repunched date at all. The shoulder of the 1 punch (a different punch than used for the first 1 in the date) was too high, and became imbedded in the die when punched into working dies. My own research has concurred with what Tom DeLorey wrote. Even examples with totally different date positions exhibit the same characteristic of the final digit. Unfortunately, once this 'variety' first appeared in print, it took on a life of its own, and is now indelibly imprinted in the minds of many collectors and dealers. It is now even listed in the Red Book and the CDN Grey Sheet, and will likely never be delisted, as it properly should.
Unfortunately, examples of this 'variety' are always priced at considerable and undeserved premiums, typically accompanied by terms such as "Rare" or "Scarce". However, you can usually find several examples of this 'rarity' at even the smallest show.
In my opinion, the "1861/0" should be removed from the Red Book and the various price sheets, and forever dropped from the numismatic lexicon. However, examples that exhibit the doubling above UNITED, described as V6 by Al Blythe, are an interesting and scarce die marriage for the 1861, not for the supposed doubling of the fourth digit in the date, but for the doubling at UNITED, which is anything but common. Your specific coin, with the doubling above UNITED, may actually be an R5, although more research is necessary in order to determione that. I am presently compiling the Liberty Seated Collectors Club half dime census, and will have more to report on this at a later date.
I hope this has been helpful to your understanding of your coin. It certainly has been therapeutic for me to vent a little about this misrepresented 'variety' that has plagued the Liberty Seated half dimes for so many years.
I have three things to say about that coin:
1.) Great pics!!!
2.) Great date (start of the Civil War)
3.) and last but not least, Great looking coin!
As I posted earlier, I paid very little premium over the normal date and did not know it was the V6 before I received it. Blythe noted that the V6 was a new discovery, but that was published in 1992 and I was hoping someone had some better information, which you did. Feel free to add mine to your census. I'm seriously considering joining the SLCC. I'm mostly interested in the half dimes, but I like all of the SL series.
On a vaguely related note, I recently picked up an 1836 3/inverted 3 (LM-3?) half dime. This one is listed as R1 but since it is a Redbook variety it also commands a premium. It wasn't listed on the holder and I bought it without the premium. I guess once they make into the Redbook the price goes up.