It would join the only other "one coin" in existance...

Greetings Collectors,

Just wanted to share a recent purchase. I picked up a nice group of Full Bell Line Franklins on eBay recently along with two MS 66's that were not full bell line coins. This is one of them.

This 1953-S in "Full Bell Lines" is the "Holy Grail" of all Franklins. There are only a handfull in MS 65 FBL and only one in MS-66 FBL by both of the "top two" graders. NGC is known by those that follow this series closly, as being the stricter of the top two when it comes to the FBL designation. If you were to obtain a full date and mint set graded MS-65 FBL, in this Franklin series (total of 35 coins), then that would be "one hell of a set". As I said there has only been one MS 66 to have the FBL designation and it is, from what I've been told, a beautiful "full color" coin and sits in a PCGS slab. The strike for that year at San Francisco was very weak and more so on the reverse in,... you guessed it, the bottom set of lines on the Liberty Bell.

But it's nice to dream. This coin is an absolutely marvelous looking coin both "heads & tails" but comes up short where it really counts most. But those of us that collect these last of the large 90% silver coins, usually have to settle for a MS-65 of this date or if we get lucky, a nice MS-66 will come along. There are just a very few MS 67's, so few I could hold them in one hand so I was very pleased when this 66 became available. I took my MS-65 and moved it to my Franklin set #2. So now I have this 66 in set #1 and an MS-65 in set 2 and set 3. Maybe I will be lucky enough to own a FBL of this date someday but I am fairly sure it will be one of just the few that grade MS-64 FBL. (these few coins are several thousands of dollars even in MS-64) If the coin you see here had those darn lines it would be pushing 6-figures, if not more.

But I am very pleased to be where I am and be lucky enough to have a 53-S that looks this good. I hope each of you are in "hot pursuit" of that favorite coin you've been wanting. As always, Happy Collecting to all of you.

WKF