Here's my latest coin for my new interest area: 1831 Capped Bust Quarter, Small Letters (B-4), PCGS XF-40 (The B-4 is tentative until I look at it more closely.)
I love these, but the market has been strange on them for years now. Everyone lists them as buy-it-now for $500 in xf, but when they auction they only go $320ish. Ebay us full of VF'S for $300 but they auction for $150-$200. So cheap for such an early series. The large size quarters follow suit, never bringing the money they should for as rare as they are in problem-free grades.
B-4 is the die marriage of the coin. A guy by the name of Browning originally numbered all of them, so the "B" in B-4 stands for Browning. They're analogous to Overton numbers for half dollars. 1831 has a total of 7 known die marriages numbered B-1 through B-7. If you're like me and too cheap to buy an attribution book, you can attribute most of them from the photographed die marriages here: https://www.ngccoin.com/coin-variet...raped-bust-and-capped-bust-quarters-vscid-10/
Well I don't pay that much attention to the auctions , but finding these in xf at shows around here is very disappointing. I go to one to two shows a month, and I seldom see them in a dealers case. Not in xf or better. And when I do the price is high. 300-500. Maybe a demographic thing but unless it's a show like Baltimore , fun show etc I don't see them.
Glad to be of assistance! It's also worth noting that each die marriage has an associated rarity number too. http://www.coinfacts.com/quarter_dollars/capped_bust_quarters/capped_bust_quarter_dollars.html http://www.seateddimevarieties.com/registry/bustquarterultimate/bb.htm Both of these sites have pretty reliable rarity ratings. The first link gives adjective descriptions (i.e.- very common, common, scarce) and the second link has the numerical rarity descriptions (i.e.- R1, R2, R3). The rarities correspond to the Sheldon rarity scale. Keep in mind that these aren't necessarily super accurate. For example, there's at least one or two supposed R5's on the list that seem to appear on eBay quite a bit too frequently to be called R5 in my opinion.
