I am a trust officer and going through an estate I have found a Walking Liberty Half Dollar clearly dated 1915. Everything I find indicates these were not produced until 1916. Does anyone have any idea what this coin is? C
Pictures, please? I found mention of a 1915 counterfeit reported in 1954, so it's not unheard-of, but this is the first time I've heard of it. I was hoping maybe it would be an ultra-rare "pattern" coin, but so far I'm not finding anything on Walking Liberty patterns dated 1915. One of our colleagues here, @dcarr, is a skilled artist who has made "restruck" versions of popular coins with non-existent dates (like a 1963 Kennedy half or a 1964 Franklin half), but I don't believe he's gotten around to the Walking Liberty series yet.
thanks for your quick reply Jeff. I took the coin to the local shop yesterday and he mentioned patterns but was going to do further research, not being a collector this was greek to me. He did weigh the coin and the weight was correct. c
If I remember correctly, I thought the patterns for WL halves were also dated 1916, just like the mercury dimes. A friend owns a 1916 mercury dime pattern.
That's true for all the WL patterns I've read about. I'd love to own one of those patterns one day, but given their market value, that's not likely.
Commemorative. Coins issued at a premium to commemorate a special event and never placed into circulation.
I've heard many stories from people who had a certain coin who thought it was big money, and turned out it wasn't. A guy I know, he tried telling me he had a 1955 silver dollar. I told him the big silver dollars weren't minted then. He darn near bit my head off telling me he knew the difference in the half a big silver dollars. "It's clearly dated 1955 and it's a big one, not the Franklin." So at best a world coin. But he never produced the coin, and I quit asking.
Which one do you have in mind? I'm drawing a blank -- all I can think of from 1915 is the Pan-Pac, and other than having a standing figure on the obverse and an eagle on the reverse, I'm not seeing much similarity there.