one of them a beautiful Franklin Cameo.

I Received a 2011 PF70UC Clad Kennedy Half Early Releases, 1967 SMS MS67FT Roosevelt Dime, 1962 & 1963 PF67 Franklin Half?s, 1879 S MS63 Morgan Dollar, and a coin I have been wanting, a nice 1957 PF67CA Franklin Half.

The coin borders on Ultra Cameo with terrific contrast against beautiful black mirrors. It's really amazing to see the contrast of the 1957 PF67CA Franklin next that of the 2011 PF70UC Kennedy. The Franklin just blows my mind considering its 54 years old next to the outstanding PF70UC strike. The Franklin had to be one of the first strikes off the die to achieve that level of contrast while the Kennedy could very well have been the umpteenth strike if not for the early releases designation.

The Franklin & Kennedy Half?s are my favorite coins to collect next to Morgan dollars. I purchased a few SMS MS Cameo Kennedys from Rick Tomaska in the last couple of years and a 1971 S Roosevelt Dime just last month. I purchased his new "Guidebook to Franklin & Kennedy Half Dollars" and hopefully it arrives this weekend, can't wait for that. I have been steadily collecting these coins for a few years now and when I purchased the 1957 Franklin recently I decided to revert back to my original collecting goal for these coins and that was to acquire a cameo set of Franklin Half dollars.

This is a point grab to be sure and since I will likely never be able to compete with the top sets in this category, on my budget, why limit myself to just one set. I could continue to acquire coins for my competitive set and never compete for a top spot so for that reason I decided to breakdown my Franklin PF set into 3. I find myself with these wonderful rare coins and I am unable to share them or benefit from the points they earn. I have acquired quite a few PF Franklin Half?s that Rick Tomaska has identified and when these coins are bumped from my competitive set they go into storage never to be seen again and I can?t bring myself to sell them. I now have 3 Franklin sets Cameo, PF68 & PF67. I?ve had this configuration for a few days now and like it so I decided to do the same with my Kennedy Short Silver Set which I broke down into 2 sets, #1 & #2. As I upgrade coins those replaced will move into the #2 set until they are finally bumped for good.

In this way I am able to share my collection of these great coins and benefit from the 4500 points they generated which incidentally put me over the 50,000 point total. Here is a photo of the coins side by side the Franklin is just amazing I can?t get enough of them.

I'll have a follow up post for my latest silver dollar for my Morgan friends soon,

Later, Merlin8*