I took a chance on this 1940-S Walker

[RGT]

I was browsing eBay and came upon a seller who had several mostly ANACS slabbed Walkers listed. I sorted through them and put four of them on my watch list. None of the pictures were very good so I kept my bids low. I only managed to win one, this 1940-S in ANACS MS64. Here are the sellers images.

 

 

What caught my attention on this one was the strike. Even with the poor pictures i could tell that the hand looked better than usual for a 1940-S. I just couldn't tell how much better. To my surprise, I won this coin for only $56 plus shipping, which was a good bit below my max.

 

The coin arrived yesterday. There is some detail on the hand but not quite as much as I had hoped for. Unfortunately, the head detail is quite weak which I wasn't expecting. Here are my pictures. Let me know what you think.

 

[RI AL]

I don't know if this will help much, but according to Breen, Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins, the 1940s is "often weak".

[James_OldeTowne]

To be honest, I would consider this a fairly average 1940-S in terms of detail, and about maxed out for the grade. I have gotten to catalog several "short sets" in the past couple of years, and though by no means an easy coin to find reasonably struck, it is definitely not as difficult as the 1941-S. That said, your cost was very reasonable. I believe I sold a similar coin for either $100 or $125 a few months ago, and that was my "dealer" price!

[D.D.]

I like it, not a bad strike, the head is a little weak but it looks better than some of the 40S Walkers in 65 holders.

 

I think the 40S is a much better buy than the 41S in 64 and up and you got a great deal.

[ant]

the rev is just awsome! the detail on the neck and and upper wing feathers wow.

the obv doesnt tickle my fancy but wow on the rev.

 

and the price is a good one in my mind.

[RGT]

I like it, not a bad strike, the head is a little weak but it looks better than some of the 40S Walkers in 65 holders.

 

I think the 40S is a much better buy than the 41S in 64 and up and you got a great deal.

 

The 41-S is the Walker poster child for weak strikes but I wasn't really aware that the 40-S was almost as bad until I read some of the Walker posts on the boards. Bob (Supertooth) recently mentioned it in his post on the 35 Walkers. I looked at a couple of dozen MS64 40-S Walkers in the Heritage archives before I bought this one and I only saw one that was clearly better struck on the hand than this one. Some were similar and many were weaker. Unfortunately most of them had more head detail. All of them cost more.

 

I started an XF-AU Walker set more than 20 years ago and had many of the later dates and a few of the earlier dates before my collection was stolen. It was a couple of years before I started collecting again after that and I never got back into Walkers. This makes only the third slabbed Walker I own though I still have rolls of circulated ones. They still catch my attention but I.m not sure I am prepared to start on a collection like that. The early dates are difficult and pricey while the later dates seem almost like widgets. I'm sure that I will keep looking and I may pick up more as I find one that strikes my fancy.

[jesbroken]

All I can say is--great eye!! I would never have bought that coin as I cannot pickup what you saw in the hand and the face seems undefined in the photo. The color sucks in the photo and yet you end up with a truly great buy. Congrats.

Jim