I have only been studying Barber coins for a few months now but I think there are a couple questions i can't quite find the answer for. @KBBPLL . Posted all that information on some subtle design changes to the barber design that occurred at the turn of the 20th Century. I found the 1999 articles relating to it but they don't discuss this either. You can pretty much draw a line between the Barbers from before 1900 and after 1900. Much like the late set Walker Halves, the 1900 to 1916 Dimes at least could be turned into a short set. It can't just be about mintages. Other articles support the idea the barber dimes stayed in circulation decades after being minted . This of couse means the earlier the coin was minted the quicker it wore down ; thus the earlier the year the smaller the surviving population of collectible coins. However, the difference between the surviving pops for those two decades must have had something to do with the design change. Perhaps i missed it. None of my grading guides make mention, but should you use a different standard for grading pre 1900 and post 1900 Barbers? My newest Grading book, Grading Coins From Photographs by Bowers make mention of the fact that Barber dimes after 1905 are far more common but that is about it. James
I had fun collecting Barber dimes years ago. They were easy to find and didn't cost very much. That may have changed. Still have a couple of albums somewhere. My only reference was the old Breen encyclopedia. Probably not much use anymore.
