As we all know, an "expert" is a has been little drip under huge pressure! Or, should that be a little "squirt"? Anyway, now that I seem to have conquered the task of putting pictures in my posts I'll proceed to bore ya all with some coin pics. Believe it or not, this 1829 Half Dollar was found a few years back in a bag of half dollars!! In that bag were circulated proofs, many 64 Kennedy's and 40%'ers as well as a nice assortment of Franklins and an ocassional Walker ......... Ahhhhhh, the good old days! Unfortunately, actually finding nice coins in rolls and bags are now sadly gone - but, on ocassion I still find some goodies in rolls from my bank. Hey! I think I am mastering this picture thingy!
You found that in circulation!!! Wow!!! I have managed to find a couple Franklin's while roll searching but that's it. Awesome.
Any chance for a better pic so we can get a good look at it? It almost looks like there is some luster still present.
Pretty amazing find. But you are correct that in the past this sort of find was possible. Now, it is virtually gone.
1829 Half Dollar find There was a LOT of luster. I would imagine that the coin was taken out of circulation by a collector not too long after 1829. How it wound up in a bag of Halves is anybody's guess. Unfortunately, no can do with better pictures as the coin sold almost immediately after I found it. Yes, to those that is gonna ask ...... even though I got it fer 50 cents I sure as the devil didn't pass it along for 60 cents!
Prior to the 1850's, it has been said there were only a half dozen or so serious collectors on this side of the Atlantic. Far more likely that the coin was stashed away by someone and forgotten about for decades.
Hmm, I didn't know that. At what point did collection become popular in North America and what sparked the change?
It first started gaining popularity in the 1850's, went through several spurts and slowdowns for the next few decades. Took off again around 1900 if I remember correctly then slowed again. Started back up in the '30s and slowed, took off in the '50s and has been growing since.
Probably. A great many banks back in the early to mid 1800's used to keep bags of half dollars in their vaults as a portion of their manditory cash reserves. During the Bank Holiday in 1933 when all the banks were shut down and their books examined, many banks still had bags of these capped bust halves in their vaults and on the books at face value
