Input on rare Hawaii Half Dollar 1928

I am pretty new to the Hawaiian Sesquicentennial half dollar. It is perhaps the rarest of the early commemorative half dollars and there also exist counterfeits.

I have this coin on hand and wondering if anyone have any inputs on it? Seller said it was bought as MS62 and removed from the slabb.

Also read that the surface of a lot of these coins looks a little off, due to souvenir distribution, mishandling, cleaning and tropical climate effects - which have made it easier for counterfeiters to get away with fake objects.

Any experiences with this coin?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Gonna need larger pics and don't post 'em as 'thumbnails (please ).

 

Tell him to have it re-graded. Unless you have a long history with the seller completely ignore any talk about what slab something used to be in.

 

Do you know why it was removed from the slab? And what grading company had graded it? Does the seller still have the serial number from the slab? If you get answers to none of these questions, I would stay away.

Actually, even if you do get answers, it still sounds a little strange to take a coin like this out of a slab, especially if the intention was to sell it.

 

Ill see what i can do

 

Indeed. This is one coin (commem) that I would not buy unless it was holdered. Even circulated examples of this issue go for moon money........

 

Agreed. I'd actually be even less likely to buy it if I started hearing stories about it used to be in blah blah blahs holder.

 

I can’t speak to authenticity, but MS it is not.

 

This is a rare coin and unless the seller is a close friend/ relative I wouldn't trust what the seller is saying. And even then I wouldn't trust them.
He may be saying it is MS 62 so he can get a higher price.
It may have come back "details" so he cracked it out.
It may be fake. Hard to tell from this photo but I have to agree with Kirk.
If I were to guess I would say Low AU-details/ High XF- details.

 

I wanna see the closeups.........I wanna see the 'die polish' lines.

 

Can't make any good assessment as to authenticity. If genuine, surfaces look "off" to me. Larger photos would be a big help. With an expensive commemorative issue, though, why take chances? Buy one already graded.

 

Think he just liked to collect the whole series in the Dansco-album for commems. It was purchased at market value 5-7 years ago. The slabb was not from one of the top TPG firms (NGC, PCGS). Regarding considerations for a potential purchase there are other factors involved too. Thus, I merely wanted some comments on the photos - but I will try to get some better ones

 

Yeah, I have looked at his other MS-coins and they all seem fine, but this one also looked a bit off to me...thats why Im trying to get some more second opinions - so thanks I will try to get some better photos. But, as I said regarding purchase there are some other factors involved too.

 

Working on getting higher resolution photos

 

If it's real, I'd most likely call it XF details, harshly cleaned. I can make that out from the pics, but otherwise you'd need better pics to tell anything else.

 

Here are some more photos that are slightly better - hope you are able assess the coin from these photos better than the last ones.

Think I am a bit more confident about its authenticity. Also compared to one sold at alibaba, and think its a pretty big difference..
https://www.aliexpress.com/cheap/cheap-1928-hawaiian-half-dollar.html

 

From the photos, I think the probability of it being counterfeit is much lower than I first thought. As green18 pointed out, die polish lines would go a long way towards establishing authenticity.

 

That Ali Boo Boo is laughable, but there were some really convincing 'fakes' (minted back in the day) that could fool the experts and many dealers. Swiatek (in his book on classic and modern comm's) states that all known examples of the Hawaiians have die polish lines. Pics are still to small to make any determination yet but I'm leaning toward genuine........

 

Yes the new photos look nice. Not sure of the grade. Cleaning is still a question.

 

+1, just because laughably bad Ali level fakes exist doesn't mean that high level counterfeits don't also. This is a coin I'd never touch raw based on someones word (unless I knew it was as good as gold) it was slabbed as whatever I'd buy the coin and crack it myself. Even if the coin is genuine, wouldn't be the first time a sellers cracked a classic commem and then upsold it raw on the hopes and dreams of the buyer that it'd grade higher than the plastic it originally resided in.