The latest CDN Monthly just arrived

[EVillageProwler]

The monthly supplemental frequently has an excellent main article. One recent one a few months ago was about Capped Bust Halves by Dave Olmstead. The 9/02 issue has an excellent article by Jim O'Donnell: Liberty Seated Half Dollars, A Variety and Rarity Analysis.

 

For those who don't know, Jim O'Donnell is a real expert with just about all silver denoms and series. Actually, he has great experience with just about all facets of coins because he's been doing it for so long. Jim is also a recognized major expert on the various Liberty Seated series.

 

A couple of interesting things I noticed just from skimming the article: I'm too excited about my 1851, but did really well on my 1852 and 1857-S. And, I realized that I passed on an opportunity for a 1846-O Tall Date too quickly. (There was a nice one in recent memory, as well as a crappy one.) In the article, Jim writes that there is only one MS specimen. Guess who made that one? Yup, it was he. It was raw in an auction, and everyone (but him and one other dealer) overlooked the fact that it's a TALL date. (It was mis-cataloged as a MED date!)

 

I think my next story is about the 1849 Double Date: An NGC-slabbed MS specimen showed up in a major dealer's inventory not long ago. A major Seated Half specialist saw it, and paid strong money for it. The seller later commented to me that the buyer paid an awful lot of money for it, and wanted to know why. I told the seller that it's because the variety was previously unknown in MS.

 

Oh, well. I wish I had been there to cherrypick too...

 

BTW, if you ever get a chance to get to know Mr. O'Donnell, I highly recommend it. He's really quirky, but he's easily one of the nicest persons ever to grace this planet (once he gets to know you).

 

EVP

 

PS You can buy back issues of his other excellent articles to the CDN Monthly Supplemental. He has articles on the smaller denoms (not 20c).

[SeanJ]

EVP,

Yeah... I know im a lil late on this thread. Just to add a lil about Jim. I met him at FUN last year through [!@#%^&^] Osburn ( seated half $ specialist). I had a chat w/ Jim about seated dimes, I was in awe the entire time. For a person I had just met, he was extremly friendly, showed me many AWESOME seated dimes he had. The best by far is his MS 1872-CC, only known MS. For a guy who has such amazing coins, he sure hates slabs. Im pretty sure right now if he was to slab his dime collection it would be the current finest, if not the finest set of all time. Have you heard anything about a possible MS 1859-S dime he recently picked up? Recently as in the past couple of months or so.

 

 

 

[EVillageProwler]

An '59-S in UNC? I'll have to check that out... Thanks for the info.

 

EVP

 

[SeanJ]

From what I heard it was either a NGC or PCGS 58. Again, from what I heard, Jim believes the coin to be an UNC.

[EVillageProwler]

The 1859-S in question is from the 11/00 Smythe Sale from the Nebraska Collection. It was slabbed by PCGS as AU58. I felt the coin was an UNC. I don't recall if I felt it was a 62 or 63. It sold for $12K + 10%.

 

That coin was really lovely!

 

EVP