error bust half dol.

Anything is possible. I would seriously consider sending it for certification. If it turns out to be real, then you've got yourself a real rarity there. If not, then it's still a neat conversation piece. Either way I think it would be well worth the cost to have it checked out.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Not sure, I only collect up to 1836. No doubt counterfeit.

Take Care
Ben

 

If you're not sure, then don't say it's "no doubt counterfeit." You could say "I think it's counterfeit", but by saying you're not sure you are implicitly stating that you do indeed have doubts about whether it may be real.

I'm going to go look it up, and if I find anything I'll post here.

Fish

 

Alright, I've looked at 1836-38 in Breen's Encyclopedia, and found no mention of the coin in question. That leaves only a few possibilities.

1. It is a counterfeit/fantasy piece. If it's counterfeit, it was probably struck and not cast as it looks (from the pictures we have) fairly convincing.

2. It is genuine, and was not known to Breen.

The latter is not entirely unheard of. I myself have a coin variety (pre-1900 mind you) that is not in his Encyclopedia. I haven't gotten it certified as such yet though.

Were I the owner, I would strongly consider consulting any experts that may live in your area, and also look at www.conecaonline.org to see if there are any bust-half experts that would like to look at your coin. If you have a bit more money to spend, send it off to one of the major TPGs to be certified and graded. If it comes back legit, you may have the discovery piece for a new variety. That would be a wonderful thing.

Whatever you do, please post back here and let us know. I myself am very curious about what the end result will be.

Good luck,

Fish

 

There is NO mintage or NO example of an 1837 Capped Bust Half obverse with an 1839 Seated Bust Half Dollar reverse. It's simply gotta be a counterfeit. The break ion the obverse near the top of the bust also says CAST to me as there was NO die used to strike 1837 Bust Halves with one. It''s either this or an altered 1839 with the (9) made to look like a (7).

Ben

 

This is certainly very interesting. I would definitely recommend sending it off to see what the experts at NGC or PCGS have to say. pauldine1, what is that little spot below the eagle's beak? Is it a raised bump?

 

There appears to be some raised bumps on the obverse as well, that I couldn't see before on my monitor. I suspect the coin is a counterfeit.

 

Congratulations, you have a bogus bustie. It is a contemporty counterfeit. The obv looks to be Obv 4 in Keith Davignon's book Contemporary Counterfeit Capped Bust Half Dollars but it isn't rev D. So it is unlisted. The rev looks like it could be Rev J of 1838. (Both of these dies are counterfeit dies) There are quite a few bogus busties that are not listed in Keith's book, and unfortunately there has never been a second edition printed.

Many of these contempoary counterfeits are worth as much if not more than the real thing. There are a fair number of bust half collectors who also collect the counterfeits, and they are a lot scarcer than the real coins.

 

Bust Half Dollar Error

Coin was sent to NGC and was returned as counterfeit. You had mentioned that these coins may have added value due to their scarcity. Can you advise how to approach selling this item? I looked at Ebay and could not find anything of this quality. Please let me know how you would approach selling this item. Thanks for your time.

 

Neither Breen nor the Guide Book mention a transitional issue, so... unless someone has a pattern book.

Wait, I have one.
I checked Judd, and he states " No patterns are known bearing the date 1837".
So?

 

There is a forum for collectors of the early bust coins but I don't have a link to it on this computer (Not the one Byron Reed ran, that one is defunct) and it might be possible to contact a bogus bustie collector through it. A better way might be to contact a dealer who specializes in the early bust material and see if they can help you with a value or a contact to a BB collector. Two specialist dealer that come immediately to mind are Sheriton Downey (sp), and Bradley Karoleff (President of the John Reich Collector Society, a club dedicated to the collectors of John Reich's Capped Bust Coinage.)

 

The Bust half Nut Club has very specific criteria for joining:
"To be considered as a candidate for BHNC membership, an individual must own a minimum of 100 different Bust die marriages by Overton attribution, should be genuinely interested in obtaining new die marriages for their set, and must be sponsored by a current member who has verified the attributions and grades on their application."

They are tough, I have been collecting the varieties for some time, and I only have a total of 76 pieces.
However, I would love to join, but, lately I haven't been able to get nice pieces that haven't been played with. Too many have been cleaned, are over graded, mis-attributed... in other words, just plain junk.

 

Yep the BHNC is a hard to get into club----I know a guy that collected Bust Halves for over 50 years off and on---early this year he got back into it and was able to join the club as has had a TON of fun collecting rare varieties.

Speedy

 

We're in the same boat, although I did get Stephen Herman's recent Auction Bid Price Guide for R-3 & Up BHDs. In the book The Book Coin Collecting for Dummies I believe there is section about the club which details the (OLD) criteria for being a member. If I'm not mistaken it recently changed from owning 40 different pairs of die states too 100 different.

Take Care and Good Luck
Ben

 

BHNC has been 100 varieties for well over a decade and as far as I know has always been 100 varieties which would push it back over 20 years. (And back then the varieties were considerably cheaper so 100 varieties would have been even easier. So I don't think the number of varieties would have been lower then.)

JRCS is much less exclusive, we welcome anyone with an interest in the Bust coins.