1840 O Reverse of 1838 half dollar? Value?

I bought this from my local coin shop the other day, it was drilled and polished... Very unfortunate, but it was really cheap and thought I'd like to have it. Today I was looking at it closer, and I believe it is the 1840 O rev of 38. Any ideas? And if so, what would the value be in a coin so damaged?

 

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That's a pretty rare coin! It is in fact the reverse of 1838, and I would still value it at $150-$200. Those are super scarce.

 

Even with its damage?

 

Yes! It's that rare.

 

Oh wow. Want to know how much I paid for it?

 

$12

 

Very close, $15! I'm super excited about this. Is it worth being graded?

 

Only if you want to erase any doubt about the variety. But it's clearly the reverse of 38...

 

Thanks for the help!

 

Nice snag

 

nice

 

Cool find! At first I was going to ask how you knew it was from New Orleans since the mintmark was gone but apparently these don't have mintmarks to start with.

 

Yeah, the capped busy had the mint marks on the front of the coin

 

Most collectors refer to it as a "medium letters" reverse as it was thought to be a product of the Philadelphia mint for years. I would probably pay $15 for one but at the same time, think that is a fair price for a VG with such a large hole.

 

It is the 1840 O reverse of 1838. Check it out on PCGS coin facts

 

If you understood the man's post, it's clear he is familiar with the coin/variety. If bothered by his value estimate, he's certainly entitled to his opinion, plus the fact is that not everyone everywhere would be willing to pay the earlier estimate. A coin like this, particularly in this condition, in order to achieve it's maximum potential, needs to be placed in front of the "right" buyer. There's certainly and demand and market for it though.

 

Your opinion - your right, of course - doesn't change the fact that Heritage has only ever offered 5 attributed examples of this variety out of 210 1840-O's over the last 25 years. This is one_scarce_variety where the rubber meets the road, a $1500+ coin in XF and even with a hole - hole isn't blocking anything, we know there's no mint mark - I'm thinking $150 is a bit conservative.

 

I just miss understood what he was saying, I thought he disagreed that it wasn't the rev of 38 [emoji23]

 

Excellent find.......... congrats