Good afternoon to all! My most recent score arrived the other day, and I've finally had a chance to photograph it. This 1885S Half Eagle was graded MS-64PL by NGC, and it is gorgeous! The fields are quite reflective, and the devices appear to have some cameo contrast. This is a very beautiful coin. Prooflike Liberty Head gold is generally pretty available, especially compared to some other series. However, most of it is usually fairly low grade. 61 and 62 are the most common grades. 63 is sometimes available, but less frequently. When you start getting to 64, prooflike gold is downright hard to come by. For the Liberty Half eagle series, for example, there are 343 prooflike coins graded (out of 212,116 total). Of those, around 20 are 64 - and only 8 are higher than 64! The majority of the prooflike coins come from the 1880's. I'm not sure why, but there is a cluster of prooflike coins in the early half of that decade. Because prooflike gold is scarce, and because it is beautiful, there is generally quite a premium for these coins. DPL coins always sell for strong money, and 63/64 PL coins generally go for 2-4x what a normal business strike sells for. The 1885S is not a key date, with 1.2 million made, but there have only been 5 prooflikes designated for the date. My new 64PL is the highest graded PL for the date. I had to pay strong money for it, but it was worth it to add this gorgeous piece to my collection. I've included a video below as well, so that you can get a better idea of how the light plays on these mirrored surfaces.
This brings my set to 49% complete. It is impossible to get 100%, as some series are unknown in PL... but I hope to get as close as I can. Yeah, they can be pricey. If you like the look of PL coins, I'd suggest trying to get a PL Morgan. Because they are so common, the premiums on PL Morgans (especially the more common dates) are usually quite low. All the look, without the crazy price. Some people really like the look of PL's, and that drives the price. For type coins (other than Morgans), PL's are usually quite scarce (or downright rare). Because of this scarcity, there's a lot of competition for the few examples that do show up. It's kind of like monster toning, but a lot more rare. Monster toners often sell for ridiculous premiums - PL coins do the same.
