There was an interesting article in the latest monthly Coin World about the recent death of Eric Newman at 106. One of the coins he owned was one of 4 known 1861-0 halves with the CSA reverse. He bought it in the late 1930's for $4000 and it recently sold at auction for $966,000! Nice going, Mr. Newman. The 61-0 had a mintage of about 2 1/2 million but it was struck by 3 different authorities: Federal government, state of Louisiana and the Confederacy. There is an excellent display of these all attributed to issuer and slabbed at the old U.S. mint museum in New Orleans, a must-see for coin buffs if you are ever visiting the Big Easy! Coin world trends does have a price listed for the CSA striking because it exhibits a large die crack on the reverse as the original die deteriorated. That's probably the easiest way for you to check if you have an example.
Here's one that was resurrected from the shipwrecked CSA SS Republic. Note the die crack, extending from the bridge of Liberty's nose.
Really interesting Story/History surrounding the Confederate coinage. Always an interesting topic to me.
Yes he did well, around 7% per annum. That identifies the variety that the Confederacy struck using the same die as the Confederate half dollar. But they struck four other varieties as well and they have different die markers.
