But I did cherrypick a half dime...

Yes, there was another Baltimore coin show, Thursday through Sunday...

Although I "completed" my sets of middle and late date large cents some time ago, I did have my eyes on several potential upgrades in the Thursday evening auction session for the Twin Leaf Collection, a nice collection of over 700 lots of middle and late date varieties. It wasn't as nice or complete as the Naftzger or Holmes collections, but still pretty good, with some top notch examples.

Most of the lots that had my attention were in the first 130 or so. I figured that would be done in an hour or less. My wife had walked to the convention center after work to meet me there for the 5:00 auction start. After those 130 lots, I planned to go home and watch/participate from home. Fortunately, as usual, Stack's-Bowers provided a nice dinner. It was fortunate, because those 130-ish lots took more than an hour.

After the first 100 lots, Melissa K. handed off the calling duties to another. As she walked down the aisle, she said "It's gonna be a long night" to the dealers in front of us. It was already after 6:30. Live bidding was so active that they were going at about one lot per minute, a pace that continued to the end. Refer to the total number of lots above and do the math.

We left after 7PM, shut out of the lots of interest among those 130 or so. At one point, Chris McCawley, who was sitting a couple rows in front of me, with no one between, turned around to comment to me, "Alan - These prices are really high." Indeed they were. As I watched from home, I ended up giving up on the few later lots I had been considering.

Friday morning, after the LSCC meeting, I saw Tony Terranova, who had been with Chris during the auction, at his table and said "So you survived last night." He said that he left when he couldn't take it anymore, at about 2AM. I later heard from others that the session did indeed last until about 5AM! Ouch.

Thursday afternoon, before heading up to the auction, I did my usual scan of the bourse. I found a nice 1838 half dime for sale at the Stack's-Bowers tables. It was a highly lustrous, untoned, beauty, housed in an old NGC slab, graded MS 65. The only notation on the holder was "NO DRAPERY", which applies to all 1838 half dimes.

A closer look revealed lumps over much of Liberty's left arm, and some on her right arm as well. I noted a couple reverse die diagnostics as well. That night, I confirmed my suspicion. It was an early stage of the Small Stars obverse die, and correspondingly early stage of the first of two reverse dies paired with that obverse. The asking price was fair for the more common Large Stars varieties.

When the show opened at 10AM Friday, I made a beeline for it. The case was empty. I asked about it, and got an initial indication that they 'might still have it'. After a little searching, it was found. And now it's mine. Unfortunately, I don't have a good picture yet.

Alan

To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.