Hello gang, I was searching a box of halves yesterday and noticed that the box had many, many Gem BU 1995 halves in it---nothing so special other than I thought it very unusual--so I was setting them aside. I decided to give them a closer inspection and noticed that one of them had a die crack running from Kennedy's adam's apple (the very bottom left corner of the bust) to the rim. I put the loupe on it to make sure it wasn't a scratch, and sure enough it was definitely a die crack. So, I looked at the rest of the group (there were a total of 120 of these in the box), and to my amazement I found a PROGRESSION of the crack, from where it started out very small at the bust and grew progressively worse over a series of 5 coins until it reached the rim. I have never seen a case where a series of coins (a quintuplet in this case) could be verified. I am somewhat at a loss as to who to contact to have these looked at and certified as a progressive series. CONECA? Wexler? Or the TPG's? Any advice as to how to handle this from the group would be welcomed!
Someone correct me if this is wrong but this crack is fairly common. It is interesting that you have a progression. The same crack in the same location appears on numerous coins and has been discussed here before. I guess they kept using the same die over and over again. As far as I know they are not worth much unless you get a collector willing to pay a premium on them.
Victor, thanks for the quick reply. I would suppose, then, what makes the find unusual (if this crack is very common with many coins showing it), is that I have found the coins where the crack started---unless the progression is common as well---
While the die crack progression is an interesting find, I think you would be wasting your time and money trying to get them certified and/or attributed. At least one of the coins would have to have major metal displacement to be of any value. I have a similar progression of 6 - 1999P GA SQ's. In this set, 5 separate die cracks have formed and lengthened on, both, the obverse and the reverse. I keep the set in flips because I think it's cool. Chris
I have found a bunch of these (read that to mean over 100). I put a crack all the way to the rim on ebay for 99 cents and it didn't sell, I put it up again and nothing happened. I put together a four coin die crack progression and put it up for auction at my coin club for a starting price of $4.50. It sold for that with no other bids. It is really interesting, and a cool find, but I think it is exrememly common. In my roll searching, I find this crack on a 1995P Kennedy ALL the time. I am going to make a display of the progression of the crack for my own collection...... Bob
Many of the Kennedy's and SQ's have die cracks form at the "vee" and/or the base of the neck. It is one of the weakest places on the die. Chris
Chris, thank you and the rest of the group for the replies. I didn't realize this was so common---but, I wanted to make sure and separate the wheat from the chaff before I decided the disposition of the coins----
