This beauty just came in the mail today. I promptly removed it from its PCGS chains to place in my type set. She's crusty with colorful toning and a lot of luster that I had a hard time capturing with the camera.
There is a trick, but I don't know that I can articulate it. It just has to do with the angle of the lighting. I just mess with the lighting until the luster comes out.
That,s a nice Barber , it looks MS to me . Also there are some threads written on the subject of taking good pictures , try a search . rzage
Oh...sorry for assuming it was AU. If, indeed, it is MS, the graders were insane that day. Given the lack of bagmarks/hits, I'd call it MS-64 or better, easily. I was just calling it AU based on the lack of detail on the high points in the leaves on the obverse and reverse. It very well could be a soft-strike MS coin, but impossible for me to tell without the coin in-hand. Regardless... nice coin.
Now, this is funny. It is generally agreed that Barber was a hack. [His father was good, not great, but good.] Mind you, I collect all Barbers [dime, quarter & half dollar], but still feel that his designs lacked inspiration.
Thanks for the complements guys! I seriously cannot stop looking at this coin. It is just stunning. Unfortunately, it sets the bar much higher for the rest of my type set. I have a feeling my dansco 7070 is going to be expensive to finish.
johnny: I have found that many AU to AU-58 quarters & half dollars are nicer than some of the uncs that are out there. Consider that.
Nice one! I sure it will tone up and be a gem! it had a good start before PCGS got it,now you free it nice job!
agreed. I started my Dansco type set with a goal of VF or better for all the coins. That is slowly changing, as a VF coin looks rather lowly being placed right next to a lusterous gem bu coin, which most of my moderns are made up of. So I began changing my coins to XF or better which works better, though still not quite a matching set. IMO, whether the coin has luster or not makes a huge difference. Most AU coins have plenty of luster, so they fit right in next to MS coins. And as said, some even look better if they are nicely struck. I think I will eventually want all the coins to be AU or better, but that is going to mean really opening my wallet for some such as the early large cents and seated dollars. Plus, I tend to go for nicely toned coins which often cost more. In the end it will be worth it, and the process is quite addictive. I have a nicely toned bu mercury and buffalo on the way, as well as an NGC AU-53 barber half. I will post pictures of all for comments. I've been selling other coins and stuff like mad to feed this "high quality" type set....and am having a blast in the process.
