how rare is this trade dollar variety?

[cointagious]

i was doing attributions for some inventory and was looking at the 3 1877-s trade dollars i have and i.d. each as breen-5814 micro 's' m.m. 'very rare' (2 au / 1 ms if anyone cares to make an issue of that). for anyone on the forum that may have researched this, the questions i have is a). how rare is rare? i have 3 of the same variety and from at least 2 dies as one has the mm centered over the 'd' in dollar, the other two with the m.m. centered above the left vertical of the 'd'. b). anyone have a intelligent guess as to the ratio of micro 's' vs. normal 's' extant? c). how obscure is this variety to warrant a meaningful premium over a normal 's' variety. d). if you were collecting trade dollars (as in 'date set') - would this variety be meaningful to you like the s/cc (not that i'm putting it on the same level).

 

thanx for any meaningful input...any help from tdn?

 

if i wanted drivel on the subject, i'd post this across the street.

[EVillageProwler]

Hi,

 

I've emailed this thread to another Trade Dollar expert (keoj) who does NOT frequent the message boards as often these days. He knows and cares a lot about these nuances...

 

From the choice of my vocabulary, you can tell that I'm not overly partial to the MM varieties based on position and size. Why? I guess because there hasn't been enough research done on them to know for sure how rare one is, and they're not that easy for the average collector to discern.

 

In short, I would pay little to no premium for these varieties.

 

The S/CC, on the other hand, is important to me. I guess because it has achieved prominence, and is also easy to spot with the naked eye. (I also consider the Type 1 and 2 obv and rev pairings for the '75 and '76 dates important as well.)

 

Perhaps now is a good time to start acquiring these Trade Dollar varieties if you can get them for no premium. Look at how valuable Early Dollar Bust Half die varieties have become in the past few years!

 

Regards,

 

EVP

 

PS Drivel!

[cointagious]

thanx evp!

any help would be appreciated. there is a noticable diffence in the size of the m.m. and most of the pieces that i've researched on the net - for which there are noted descriptions or pix - are of the macro design. i forgot about keoj, but i hope he has something to say about this. this topic is doesn't seem to be in tdn's area of interest and shiro doesn't post here.

[EVillageProwler]

You can always PM Shiro and ask him at least to read this thread. If he wants to respond, then he has the option...

 

EVP

 

[Guest]

EVP emailed this thread. Yes, I do study arcane mintmark sizes in the Trade Dollar series. My main collection is is the Type I and II obverse and reverse combinations. I also have a sub-collection of micro - large MM's depending on the date an rarity.

 

Okay, onto your questions:

 

a) I have found the 77-S micro s is not that rare. There seem to be many that come up for sale or can be seen.

b) The ratio, I'll guess on this one (but its probably close), is probably 1 out of 20 for this date. However, becase the 77-S is one of the most available dates, its not that rare. I know that is contrary to Breen's write up but I've seen a couple of big mistakes in his accounting for the series.

c) I hate to say this, but I don't think that it warrants any premium over a normal 77-S. An noted, it just isn't that rare of a variety for the date. In addition, there are very, very few of us who collect that this level of variety.

d) I have a nice one in my set, but it isn't that meaningful to me. Again too easy.

 

Please email me at jdkajl@tiac.net and I'll send you a listed of varieties that I feel are the tough ones to find. Again, this is just my opinion but it'll give you a view of the some really tough ones.

 

keoj

[cointagious]

mighty big thanx, keoj.

that's exactly the kind of info i was lookin' for.