So im still a little noobish but I have noticed many MS slabbed coins from many series for sale except for the barbers. Why are there not many of them floating around? I see a lot of AU but very rarely see a MS barber dime quarter or half. Just curious if there are just not many and why.
Unlike Morgan dollars, of which, many remained in Treasury vaults, I'm guessing that the smaller denomination coins of that era were used quite a bit in everyday transactions. ~ Chris
They are out there, just not too many Barber collectors. Personally, I loved collecting Barber Quarters.
The Great Depression killed a lot of Barber Coins. People had to eat. They could not afford to set coins aside to collect them. That’s what the Barber coins are a bit scarce in mid grades, like EF and VF, let alone Mint State.
Would probably be a lot more if it wasn't so hard and expensive to consistently find really nice ones
When I was a kid (1950s) Barbers were the few "old types" that could be occasionally found in change.
When I was a kid in the 1950s I was checking coin rolls of cents and nickels. From 1961-1964 I had a paper route. I never saw a barber coin or v nickel in circulation. You were truly blessed trussell.
When I was a kid in the 50s, you could walk into a bank and see that tellers had a tray of coinage to be used in transactions and occasionally they has silver dollars in the tray that you could trade for your silver certificate.
I remember that you could get silver dollars at banks through 1964 but most kids didn't bother for two reasons. First every coin larger than a nickel was silver. Second - When you got a dollar for an allowance or had an income from a paper route a dollar was a lot of money. Whitman folders cost 19 cents and most kids collected cents and nickels. I had a paper route so I also collected dimes. I've always loved standing liberty quarters but I did not see a way to afford accumulating them so I had one nice one for my type set and spent the rest. Larger coins and bills generally went to pay for my papers and supplies.
The dimes, quarters and half dollars have always been working money during the entirety of the 19th and early 20th century. So the Barbers were used extensively in trade and since the design was considered by many at the time as kind of "ho-hum", collectors didn't seek them out for preservation (I can't prove that last contention, I have merely assimilated it from others opinions and comments). Silver dollars, however, were mostly used in international trade and thus shipped overseas or were bank-bagged to support the money standard. And then, the western silver mining interests caused Congress and thus the mint to make millions of Morgans that nobody wanted so millions of uncirculated dollars were put away in bank bags in vaults. Having said that, there are lots and lots of mint state slabbed Barber dimes, quarters and half dollars but nice ones get pricey quickly because there is some demand that the supply can't quite satisfy. I don't know where you've been looking but I see MS and PR slabbed Barbers all the time at Heritage Auctions and Great Collections Auctions. You can get somewhat of a feel for what's available by visiting the PCGS and NGC population reports for the Barber series. Pick a common date and grade(s) and look up the population of slabbed coins. This won't account for raw coins but you didn't really exhibit an interest in those.
When I was a kid in the '50s looking through tons of coins, I don't think I found many, if any, Barbers. I did get a few really nice coins from a trolley driver who turned his vehicle around at my school. As I recall, the best were an 1897-O and a 1904-O quarter. Each would probably grade AU50 or better today. Cost me 25c apiece. I frittered them away in unwise trades. Too painful to talk about. I lived in Louisiana so coins from the New Orleans mint were relatively plentiful. Also the Denver mint. I found a couple of 1914-D cents, for example, and had to buy a 1932-S 25c.
I believe there must be a core group of buyers that love Barber coins. Some of them realize hefty prices which you can see if you look at PCGS and NGC coin info. I love the design, especially of the half dollar Barber. Thanks for sharing.
Yeah. I see them in high grade or low grade. I find vf and xf very hard grades to find. Especially halves
