I made a purchase at the Baltimore show.

As I mentioned last time, a dealer was going to bring a coin to the Baltimore show for me to examine. So after putting in a few hours of work Thursday morning, I headed off to the show. I saw the coin, an 1838-O half dime, and liked it. I did not buy it immediately, since I wanted to do my usual scan of the whole bourse first. I did not find anything better for my collection, and proceeded to seal the deal.

The coin is housed in an NGC holder, graded MS 62. So it is not a fabulous coin, but is still pretty nice. Heritage recently offered another that was a bit less visually appealing, and I passed. The Gardner specimen is graded MS 66 and just sold for almost $50,000, not to me...

So now I have an acceptable example of the first year of issue of half dimes from the New Orleans mint. 1838 was the only year that mint produced the No Stars type. The Philadelphia mint made No Stars half dimes only in 1837.

While scanning the bourse, I stopped at Chris McCawley's table. It was very unusual that no one else was there looking at his early copper offerings or chatting with him. So I sat down to chat. He had some science and religion questions for me, so we discussed that while I looked at a large cent he had purchased at the Gardner sale on Monday.

It was a coin I considered getting, but let go so I could concentrate on the half dimes. But since I did not spend as much in the Gardner sale as I was prepared to, it is a temptation again. Chris offered it to me at less than one bid increment over what he paid, an amount that seems reasonable to me. I might pull the trigger when I go back to the show Friday morning.

We also talked about the Gardner Seated Liberty coins, the 1846 half dime I wanted in particular. He said he knows who bought it, and that I should not expect to see it again, at least not as "cheap" as it was on Monday.

Overall, the show seemed pretty busy. I found myself dealing with traffic and busy dealers for most of the afternoon. But I found few other coins of interest. One that I did look at was an 1882-S Morgan with incredible violet color on the reverse. It was graded MS 67+ by PCGS, and had a green CAC sticker. But without that color it may have been 65 or 66 (just too many signs of contact masked by the color). The price was inflated as well - nearly $4000.

It is time for bed. The Liberty Seated Collectors Club meeting will be my first stop in the morning. That may be followed by another purchase. Then I will go back to work.

Here's the reverse of the 1838-O half dime. Enjoy, and happy collecting!

Alan

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