1850-O half dime

[darktone]

I got this one in the mail yesterday and I was very excited about it and I just had to show it off. If anyone is familiar with grading these please PM me with your thoughts. mike

[jtryka]

Wow, it looks really nice from the photos, not sure if it's been cleaned though, kinda hard to tell. Still a very nice half dime! Congrats!

[reid1836]

I would give it an AU-55 to AU-58. Shows slight wear on the obverse dentils lower right and slight wear on the reverse, right side of wreath leaf vein details.

[darktone]

Thanks everyone for your responses here and in PM's. From the response I have got from the guy's that collect these coins on both forums in PM's I have decided to send this out for grading Monday and should be able to report a grade back by late in the week. mike

[Elbesaar]

Hi Darktone: This is a choice AU 58 half dime. If it came back back as MS, I wouldn't be surprised. This series is notorious for weak strikes on the denticles, but there is some rub on the veins of the reverse leaves. Good luck with the grading company. Mike

[darktone]

I am very happy to report NGC graded this coin MS64. mike

[bigd5]

I'm happy for you too!! That's a heck of a score. Selling, or keeping? Just curious.

[darktone]

I think I will keep this one for a while as I only have one other half dime in my collection and it's the same date and mint mark. Now if I can do this on a weekly basis with different dates I would have a pretty darn nice set by this time next year. I think I will start with the first year of the series 1837- stay tuned for this one. mike

[jtryka]

Congrats mike! That is super!

[jom]

Mike does it again! But a half dime? What about the gold, man. What about the gold?

 

jom

[darktone]

No luck with gold lately in fact I bought a $5 indain as Unc. only to find it as XF when I got it in the mail yesterday- I lost a few bucks on this one but I am expecting a $5& $10 liberty real soon. mike

[roadrunner-migration]

Darktone,

 

NGC graded the coin properly imo as it has no rub on it whatsoever. Any issues with leaf veins, bow knots, dentils, etc, are strictly striking issues. You can see that the right obv field has full luster which is rarely seen on an AU seated coin unless it sat on a felt tray for 50 years. The upper leaves have no rubbing and would have gone too. If those are good, it is very unlikely other leaves would be worn individually. If you can find one leaf that is fully up with no signs of wear that's all you need. There is also no real flatness on the knee, head, and breasts.

But my basic rule on 63 and higher seated coins is that if you see full field luster with no obvious major breaks, you are looking at an UNC coin 98% of the time, regardless of other seemingly poor striking details. In fact today I looked at an AU seated half dime in one of the 2 top holders that had the right hand field completely rubbed out from circulation. But it was in an older MS65 holder to boot.

The coin had 50% of it's orig luster but was graded 65 because it looked pretty.

 

roadrunner

[GP_]

sweet! congrats!