That is a very nice set and I learned something. I didn't realize that the eagle 's tongue shows on the Reverse of '38 on the 1840-(O). I usually look for the narrow wing tips on the reverse of '38. Here's mine, also a WB-4 like yours is. The WB-4 is actually a common die marriage (R3) but the demand for this "mule" pushes the price way up. I purchased this as a raw coin off eBay. It was improperly labeled as an 1840 but sold at full retail back then for a 1840-(O).
I am curious why you picked Seated Liberty Halves? I too have been collecting them for many years, almost exclusively, although my collection is no where near as nice (or complete) as yours. My reason for starting the collection was fairly straightforward in that I had completed Kennedy, Franklin, Walking Liberty and Barber, so it seemed logical to start Seated Liberty. At first, more than one dealer told me they did not stock them because there was so little interest from collectors. That worked to my favor because prices were more reasonable than now.
When I got back into coin collecting, I was becoming far-sighted and decided to collect larger silver coins. I decided to try to collect Barber halves raw off eBay to fill a Dansco album. TomB's articles on original Barber halves helped define for me what I was looking for. Unfortunately, many of the raw coins on eBay had been cleaned or wiped and I was disappointed by the lack of availability of original coins. One of the handful of nice Barber halves I found raw on eBay (VF25) I've always liked the seated Liberty design, so I purchased a few raw seated halves that looked original with nice rich toning and was delighted with their look and originality in-hand. I soon became hooked on SLHs. Because they tend to have more toning than Barbers, I could discern their originality better by examining their toning patterns. My "batting average" was much better with raw SLH than with raw Barner halves off eBay. As a consequence of my relying on toning, my collection tends to be dominated by richly toned coins. PCGS VF35 1853 PCGS XF45 CAC 1843 WB-35 (R3) I eventually abandoned my goal of having a complete Dansco set when I ran into difficulty finding tougher dates that would straight grade and I didn't want to crack out coins. So about five years ago, I started sending my coins in for grading with PCGS and started buying more slabbed, straight-graded examples of the tougher dates. At about the same time, I downloaded Bill Bugert's registries of die marriages and discovered a very rare die marriage (an R8) in my collection and then found an 1855/54 overdate in my 1855 slot. I found my niche looking for rare die marriages and cherry picking 1855/54 overdates. It was similar to what I had been doing professionally as a freshwater entomologist. 1874-S WB-4 (3 known) My interactions with other SLH collectors and seeing their collections (Catbert, Southcounty, LJenkins, and JBN) have influenced me to consider buying more high-grade coins and coins with nice color for common dates where I could afford them. I have never had THE key date coin for collections I worked on when I was younger (Lincolns, Liberty nickels, Mercury dimes, Walkers, and even Washington quarters), so I decided to take a huge financial risk and go after an 1878-S. It was a financially insane purchase. CACG AU58 1878 "Wimpy 8" Soaring auction prices lately have pushed me back to hunting for raw coins on eBay again to find some supposedly common but surprisingly difficult coins to finish off my collection.
SBA $1's... I have the 6 proof coins in other holders. '79 & '81 type 2s... '79 type 1... '80... '81 type 1... '99... Various sets from the mint... 2 versions (packaging-wise) of the '79 and '80 souvenir sets... '79, '80, '81, '99 uncirculated sets...
Canadian "Birds of Prey" Silver 5-Dollar Series... 2014 and 2015. Peregrine Falcon, Bald Eagle, Red-tailed Hawk and Great Horned Owl. Oddly enough, you don't have to go to Canada to see these birds in the wild. You can find them all very readily in the States. Best pictures my setup can do at the moment.
