Clarification of my point...

I've gotten a few responses to my previous post about the recent auction result at Heritage for a 1945-S walking half. One was a comment from a currency collector saying it's a nice coin. A friend pointed out another offered by a dealer for $29K. The third was worded such that I'm not sure if the writer is similarly amazed at the $37K result or not.

Anyway, I was simply observing the large discrepancy in Heritage's results for the 45-S half in MS67, depending on grading company. Here's a better summary of those results: In the past 3 years, Heritage has sold 9 in NGC holders, results ranging from $1725 to $2875, averaging about $2064. During the same period, they have sold 3 in PCGS holders, results being $21,850, $17,250, and $37,375, averaging almost $25,500.

The $2875 NGC and the $37,375 PCGS were back-to-back lots the other night. Looking at just those two coins, their surface quality appears similar (hard to tell everything from photos...), the PCGS one is noticeably better struck, and has toning that is currently popular, while the NGC coin is "white". Certainly those factors make some difference in price, but that much?

I understand that the market may have decided that PCGS may be grading these coins more conservatively than NGC. But I have trouble believing it would lead to more than a factor of 10 difference in price.

So I was left wondering what else could cause such price differences. My conclusion was that it could be demand from PCGS registry collectors, who currently have no more than 6 potentially available specimens, while NGC registry collectors have 22-ish additional examples out there.

I'm no expert on Walking Liberty half dollars or the market for them. This just struck me as something worthy of discussion. If you think I'm missing some relevant information that can explain the observed price difference, I'd like to hear it.

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