I thought this recent acquisition might be interesting to post. Guess the grade, CAC or no CAC, and I'll be impressed if anyone knows the variety. Poking around I saw that this coin has been for sale three times in the past! Recent seller pics. My lame images. As usual with these brown-looking images, the real colors in hand are crazy. Previously sold in 2009 with not so good images. Sold again in 2010. Stack's tried to sell it in 2011 but reserve not met. I did some quick videos. It was re-submitted after 2009 and then the slab was damaged below DIME on the reverse, which is the ugly smudge seen there. Have at it!
MS64 CAC I forgot what it's called... is it that Obverse design variety with the updated ear? The 1901 obverse?
I'm guessing MS-65 no CAC or MS-64 CAC. The reverse looks perfect to me but there are some cheek ticmarks and a little scar at the bottom rear of the neck. So, if graded MS-65 it would not garner a CAC green bean but if graded MS-64, I think it would. Reasoning aside, I'll vote MS-64 CAC. Can't speak to variety.
No, but you're in the right ballpark on the variety. It's only been published in the BCCS journal so I don't expect many would know or remember it. Sadly CPG decided not to publish it, and the 3rd edition of Barber Silver Coins didn't update anything discovered in the last 5 years, despite the publisher being aware. I'll wait a bit longer for more chances to reply.
@ddddd got it right out of the gate. @Anthony Mazza you were on the right track as far as hub types. The obverse change you remembered occurred in 1901, but there are no "early releases" of it yet discovered for 1900, and I don't expect any. I did discover (and publish in BCCS) that 1901-O used the old 1900 obverse, likely a single die, quite scarce. Very recently a 1901-S using the 1900 obverse was posted in the BCCS Facebook group, but not confirmed. No, this 1900-S is the reverse of 1892-1899. I discovered about 5 years ago that there was a third reverse hub type, introduced in 1900. Previously John McCloskey discovered in 1980 that the obverse and reverse hubs had changed in 1901, and the details in his Coin World article have been repeated in the guide books by David Lawrence and David Bowers (and also on NGC, with quite a few mistakes). The reverse change noted by McCloskey was the addition of an extra fold in the right ribbon end - the "thick ribbon." However, the reverse had actually first changed in 1900, and then the extra fold was added to that design in 1901. Here the differences are highlighted between an 1899 proof and a 1900 proof: Compare the subject coin to my other 1900-S with the "correct" reverse: Notice the obvious differences in the lower left leaf veins, and the corn kernels. As part of discovering the third reverse type, I also discovered that San Francisco minted a small number of coins using the old 1892-1899 reverse in 1900. One or possibly two reverse dies used the old type. After posting this, I went back through my research and 6 out of 7 coins with this anomaly are demonstrably from the same die pair. The 7th coin (ex-Simpson) had different die cracks, many of them, and I suspect that die did not produce many coins before being retired. Philadelphia also minted a small number of coins with the 1900 reverse in 1899 - an early release. Here is a comparison of the ribbon area for all three reverses - 1892-1899, 1900-1901, and 1901-1916. The latter "thick ribbon" is what McCloskey originally published. I've been obsessed with these dime transition varieties for a while now, as you can tell from this diatribe. 1901 had a mix of the 2nd and 3rd reverse types at all three mints, and SF continued to use the 1900 reverse sporadically through 1905. How and why is a mystery. To collect all of the variety mixes from 1899-1905 requires 21 coins, possibly 22 now if 1901-S Obverse 1 exists. I have a special obsession with the 1900-S anomaly because I found it. I had bought a raw one early on and then an AU-53. When I saw this gem example at auction, I couldn't resist. Looking back on my earlier research yesterday, I realized that this coin is the one where I originally noticed the transition anomaly in Heritage archives, and now I own it! Pretty crazy. I agree that the flaw in the lower left bust is noticeable, and maybe the CAC is debatable. But I bought it for the stellar reverse strike of an uncommon variety.
I'll update in case anyone down the road is interested. There were definitely two die pairs that produced the 1900-S "reverse of 1899" anomaly. The two obverse dies are distinguished by the date position, as well as die cracks through the bust: The two reverse transition anomaly dies are distinguished by some obvious die cracks, as well as the mint mark position. Die pair #2 is noticeably higher and left of die pair #1, and has a minor RPD. Of 14 graded coins with the 1899 reverse on Heritage, GC and Stack's, 12 are die pair #1 and only 2 are die pair #2. The other thing that sent me down a rabbit hole is that after purchasing I noticed that the listing said it was "From The Globus Collection." Dr. Alfred R. Globus had a massive collection of world, ancient and US coins. I had never heard of him. https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/1295/ Curiously, the 05/28/09 Heritage, 08/12/10 Heritage, and 01/04/11 Stack's offerings of the same coin did not mention the Globus collection. I thought I'd try to find out how it was now pedigreed to Dr. Alfred R. Globus. After some sleuthing, on NNC I found a list of auctions where Globus was mentioned, from the resource here https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/546873?page=949 Stack's has an incredible archive of their auction catalogs, and the Globus collection appears two dozen times. Going though the auction catalogs I finally found my coin attributed, from a 05/05/98 sale. I'm the fifth owner since Dr. Globus, and who knows who owned it before him. It's amazing what you can find out about one little coin.
