Where can I find a listing, with pics, of the different die marriages for the 1861-O half dollar. I did find a few listings, but none with pics. Wiley-Buger published a book, but I don't want to spend $300+ to research 1 coin. Local Library system does not have it.
My wife found this a while back but I have not confirmed it: "The article you are looking for appeared in Volume #33 Issue #97 of the Gobrecht Journal." I'm looking at the five volume set of past issues and it is not in there so must have been printed after they were distributed. NGC conserved a large batch of the CSA coins and they probably have photos.
Yep. Thanks to this poster - this is probably what you'll need: Randall Wiley’s Die Marriages of 1861-O Half Dollars in the Gobrecht Journal (Vol 32, No 94; Nov, 2005)
The WB book is available free of line from DLRC books. I don't have the link handy, but it should be easily found with minimal effort. With that said, the suggestion provided by Insider and Coinzip is the way to go.
THANKS A BUNCH. I'm good on searches but this one eluded me. Found it on the Journal but still can't find it on DLRC books, but I need to get back to work! Thanks again.
In the recent revamp of their website, DLRC has taken their reference pages offline. No more books, at least for the moment.
I've been at it from every possible direction, even playing with potential permutations of site URL's, and near as I can tell they're completely offline. It's disappointing, because the DLRC library was my go-to reference source for more than one issue, your coin being the most important of them. Seated Halves are otherwise fragmented in terms of information available online. Heritage has 150 1861-O's attributed by WB number in their archives and about a third of that listed by die pair and/or, but that doesn't mean all the die pairs are present and almost certainly not all are described in text so you'd have to figure individual pickups based just on the images. Here's a Powerpoint presentation by Bill Bugert which contains some tasty morsels on the issue: www.lsccweb.org/education/1861-O-HalfDollars.pptx
Issue 97 does not have images, but issue 94 which identifies the different marriages does have images. (They aren't the greatest images in the world, but they help, and there is a description of the die diagnostics for each die as well.) It can be downloaded for free from the Newman Numismatic Portal. (All the issues of the Gobrecht Journal are available on the Portal) https://archive.org/details/gobrechtjournalfn094libe
Correct, DLRC has them down temporarily. I contacted them a couple weeks ago, and they said they will be available again. Just not until they work out more important bugs on their site first.
I don't doubt they'll bring it back - they're coin guys first and foremost, just coin guys who have managed to become nationwide. The site redesign crams so much functionality into a complex system that it's understandable they'd want to ensure it's all sorted out before integrating the reference database.
The ANA Library would likely have the book and send it to you just for the price of postage back and forth. If you're an ANA member of course (which you should be as someone who enjoys this hobby). They would also likely have all of the journal articles referenced in this thread and I've even had them copy and mail articles for me instead of having them send the full journal.
The WB book that was on the DLRC website is woefully out of date and it only listed four varieties for the 1861-O and it didn't separate with ones were struck by which government. The link I posted earlier DOES list all the varieties (14 of them) and which government struck which varieties. And like I said you can download it, right now, for free. No waiting for a copy to arrive in the mail.
For some reason, the post in which I called forth the blessing of every deity I'm aware of, upon you, for that link failed to appear. Let me correct that.
