Hi everyone, new member here. Posted most of this in the new member forum just now but... Been lurking around here for a while and decided to sign up to ask questions. Always have collected coins from change since I was a kid, but a couple of years ago got very interested in the historical aspect of coin collecting and I decided to start a type set of non-gold circulating US coins. Maybe some day when I complete the collection, I'll move on to gold, but that's a LONG way away. Thus far I'm only collecting raw coins and have nearly completed 20th and 21st century and have several examples of 19th century as well... no major purchases yet, but as the coins in the collection get older, they do tend to get more expensive. My collection has been all about personal satisfaction so I choose coins that are affordable (to me) with a good amount of detail. So the real reason for this post is to get your opinion on this Barber half I picked up yesterday. How would you grade it? Thanks!
By the way, that's a nice better date coin and looks pretty un-tampered with. One of my favorite date/mm combo's
Wow, thanks for all the quick responses. I paid F15 price for it, but when I got home and looked up the PCGS photo grade it looked very close to the VF20 and there is a rather dramatic jump in price between 15 and 20 for this date/mm, so I started thinking that I'd done really well. At the very least I know I didn't overpay for it.
Based on the grading guides I've studied, I'd give it a 15, but it seems like I've seen photos of coins in 20, 25 or even 30 slabs with less detail than that. The grading guidelines seem relatively straightforward for this series, but it seems like the TPGs are playing from a different book.
I'd call it F15 Too much wear on the laurel headband for a "VF" status, IMHO. Either way, the piece is attractive and very original! Nice coin! :thumb:
You're not the only one that has noticed this. TPG's have been very lax in grading halves. I've see F15's in VF30 holders and XF40's in VF25 holders. Stick to strict grading of the series no matter what TPG or raw and you won't be disappointed when it comes time to sell.
