A sweet little purchase

Although my primary numismatic interest is those grand old large cents, those of you who read my posts know I also have an interest in anything with "half" in the denomination, especially half dimes. I picked up another from Heritage's Long Beach auction a few weeks ago.

When I was nearing completion of my initial collecting goal (the late date large cents, one per date), I started on another goal, a set of proof half dimes (1858-1873). That seemed like another achievable goal: 16 coins, none of which is especially difficult to find. In a year and a half I had gotten five, though one proved to be a mistake (body-bagged as improperly cleaned, and has a gouge I didn't notice in the auction photo, hidden in the wreath). But toward the end of that period, I snatched up an 1857 MS66 half dime pretty cheap, and shifted gears to collecting nice MS capped bust and seated half dimes. That was three years ago.

The set of proof half dimes had been neglected for those years, during which I've focused on building & upgrading my large cent sets, getting the MS half dime sets going, and adding a few other odds and ends. But I never stopped looking at the proof half dime offerings.

Well, one caught my eye in the Long Beach auction, and I wound up getting it. It's a PR65 Cameo, CAC approved, little beauty from 1864. It is essentially untoned and is very well struck. On the reverse of these coins (1860-1873), the upper-left part of the wreath and the ribbon are frequently poorly defined, even on proofs. The opposing features on the obverse can be poorly defined as well. I refuse to buy such coins. Unfortunately, the holder is beat up a bit, so the photo doesn't really show the coin well. But at least the quality of the strike is apparent.

With all the buzz about gold and silver, I thought I'd add the following. A seated liberty half dime has about 0.039 troy ounce of silver. At today's price ($24.68/t.o.), that's about $0.96. I paid a bit more than that...