It is another great one! I love your Franklins and Peace Dollars. We have similar tastes and it is nice to see bits and pieces of your great collection.
Question. Do they mint these coins so you can actually read what’s written on the bell. Wonder why only 64. A TAD of chatter and a few dots is all I see.
I seem to recall reading that when the new San Francisco Mint opened in 1937, they got the old equipment from the Denver Mint and Denver got new equipment. Denver had the best strikes, followed by Philadelphia, then San Francisco. "Pass and Stow"...I always thought those were shipping instructions. https://quotes.yourdictionary.com/articles/what-words-are-engraved-on-the-liberty-bell.html
Shipping instructions? Man am I laughing hard or what? I can hardly spell. LOL and lots more. John Pass and John Stow made recasts of the original Liberty Bell. Both are from Philadelphia and the made the recasts twice. Lester and Pack made the original bell in 1752 in London. The bell cracked shortly after arriving in Philadelphia.
You can read most of what’s on the bell with new dies but those dies wore quickly to where you couldn’t. I only need a few more in this grade and condition to have them all in MS-64 in PCGS slabs. Most are affordable but there are some that are not.
Fun Fact: in early years of Franklin half collecting, they actually valued a readable "Pass and Stow" as the key detail. The bell lines were not the most important feature. The Master was re-engraved in 1960, but they neglected the bell lines. Thus, FBL percentages are much lower in the 60's than in previous years. So, for the real Franklin Half specialist.. PCGS FBL really means absolutely nothing. PCGS only uses the bottom set of lines to call it FBL (CAC follows the useless PCGS guidelines). For NGC to call it FBL, both sets of lines must be complete and uninterrupted. So... once you finish the pcgs fbl set, you can upgrade to the NGC FBL set.
I don't have it handy, but Rick Tomaska has a book on Franklin Half Dollars where he discusses FBL designations. Although, TPGs have specific requirements for granting superior strike designations (e.g. FH, FBL, FSB, etc.), he argues that these designations are really meant to correlate with overall strike quality. He suggests that graders should consider the overall strike of the coin when assigning a superior strike designation. I don't know if that's what happens, but it makes sense. I see cases where PMD disrupts the bell lines, costing it a FBL designation. I could argue that PMD shouldn't be a factor in granting FBL designation since PMD has nothing to do with the quality of a coin's strike.
Thanks for taking the time to respond. Great stuff. Almost as good as a philly cheese steak. Was a good read. I miss Kurt. (Philly Kurt). Knowing him. He’s probably that off the wall Flyers mascot (Gritty). Punching kids and stuff. Lol
Sucks. Don’t own a Franklin either. Not a whole lot of silver in this house. I believe I have some older mint sets that are sister owned. I wanna hand them out so I can maybe open a few. Nobody care but me