What do you see as currently over-hyped coins?

The lightest dimes, quarters, and halves I've ever weighed (relative to their as-struck, 25-grams-per-dollar weight) have been Barbers. Maybe some SLQs as well. Those things circulated very heavily, and I wonder if the Fed slowed down their reclamation of worn coins during the 20th century. (But I don't wonder hard enough to go look up the relevant reports, at least not right now.)

So if you're looking to maximize the amount of silver you get per face value amount, Barbers are indeed a bad bet. Best yield of silver is from 1964 issues, because they had so little time to circulate.

One other interesting note -- my tubes of slick Barbers and SLQs actually weigh a good bit more than any others, because you can fit a lot more slicks into a tube! Losing the rim and the high points removes some weight, but a lot more thickness, so slicks pack more densely than barely-worn coins.

 

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Collectors have poo-pooed the Barbers probably since their inception. Which is why there is so much left to discover in the series. I don't understand the disdain - if it's the design, I don't find it much different aesthetically than the insanely popular Morgans. They both have a giant-headed manly Liberty and an eagle on the back.

 

True, however I don't see the Morgans worn down as slick as many Barber coins. A heavily worn Morgan does not appeal to me either.

 

Yeah.... Well I suppose it figures that I am not much of a Morgan man either, however I do have a few rolls stuffed in my SDB for a rainy day. I think as coin collectors we gravitate towards what we find appealing and I never found the Barber series to be very appealing.

 

Barber's have always been a divisive series. Generically I think they are bland unless fairly high grade. However, as a coin design there is no denying its unbelievably functionality. As many have said they are MASSIVELY worn, yet nearly all still have date and mm legible even in poor 1 grade. While not necessarily my taste, technically I believe its one of the best coin designs we have ever had. My favorite circulating US coin design is the buffalo nickel, beautiful but horrible in technical terms.

 

I attribute that to the Barbers being the workhorse of the daily economy, whereas Morgans sat in bank vaults by the millions. So "never cared for them" versus underappreciated is a personal opinion, and maybe the Barbers will never move from the former to the latter. Sure, the design is mostly the same on three denominations, so they're boring in that respect. Yet there are tons of RPDs, RPMs, transition varieties and interesting hub type pairings, many poorly documented and many still waiting to be found. Here's an example. To many/most, just another slick Barber. To me, a scarce example of the obverse 1 / reverse 3 pair found on less than 1% of the mintage. To each their own! OK, now I'm over-hyping them.

 

IMO:

Overhyped - many modern mint products. Some are great but many are just terrible.

Underhyped - circulated coins that didn't have much love.

 

The most overhyped (and ridiculous IMO) are the graded low ball coins, I don't GAF how much the coin industry claims it's good for collecting. It's BS. You can make a coin a lowball in your pocket (or by other means) but you'll never bring or restore a coin to it's mint condition. It's a joke, big time.

 

As far as I'm concerned, it's a huge perverse incentive for people to manipulate coins, and worse yet, to manipulate them into a poorer condition than that in which they were found. I imagine very few lowballers actually do that. But there are going to be people who see the market, and think "I want a piece of that, who cares if a couple of old beat-up coins get a little more beat up..."

 

This. Most surviving Barbers are in the AG/G and below range and are butt ugly. But at least for me, the higher grade ones are some of the most beautiful coins produced by the US. It’s an uncluttered and very pleasing design.

 

Spot on. If counterfeiters go to all the trouble to make fake Morgans and Peace dollars, beating up some circulated coins is merely child's play for those idiots.

 

For my money, the most beautiful uncirculated coins are SLQs in mint state with some album toning. I just can't afford them and refuse to chase them.

 

That’s another personal favorite but, like MS Barbers, not something I can afford on any frequent basis.

 

I think world coins in general are underappreciated, especially by people in the U.S. There are the popular areas such as Latin America, Germany, China and the UK, but I think the rest of the world is largely ignored except by a few. If a collector is interested in the history of coins and getting high grade pieces at a fraction of U.S. coin prices, world coins are where it's at!

I know I might catch hell for this, but I find Morgans over hyped. Every single show I've been to has cases upon cases of them. Might just be me, but I don't see the appeal.

I agree with the sentiments about low ball collecting. I just do not understand the fascination. And though I do love a nicely toned coin, it does seem that sellers deem ANY toning as worthy of a premium.