I had like 45 minutes to shop the local coin show today. I was nearly done. Picked up a few semi-cheap type coins... nothing terribly exciting. At the next-to-last table, a dealer had his certified coins set up in 3 cases. Nice stuff. All priced at or above retail, but this one caught my eye. I almost always check 1809 bust halves in hopes of finding the lll edge or xxx edge varieties. Flipped it over and saw the wild die cracks. A little bell went off in my head. I knew this was a Rarity 5, but wasn't sure which one. I paid $575 for it, which was his asking price. It's an ugly coin and frankly, I'm surprised it straight graded. But this is an extremely rare die marriage/state. It's the O-114a (I checked when I got out to the parking lot and confirmed it). The finest known are two PCGS XF45's. This one will make the second PCGS XF40. Meaning it's a condition census coin, tied for 2nd finest known. PCGS Price Guide value is $4000. I've only ever found one other of these in all my years of searching, and it was a harshly cleaned Fine details. I don't have Overtons like this completely committed to memory, but thankfully, I've had my nose in the book long enough to remember a few things!
Congrats. 1. Was this slabbed before PCGS put Overton numbers on the slab? 2. I’m still amazed at how many dealers don’t attribute these, or attribute them incorrectly.
1. No. PCGS won't look at Overtons unless the submitter asks for it and pays for it. The dealer said he bought it from a collector, so whoever that collector was, he didn't pay for the attribution. 2. It happens. I'm a dealer and I've been cherrypicked before. I try to check them all, but sometimes I can't or don't bother. It doesn't happen often, but it does.
Very nice find! Your memory for these rare varieties never ceases to amaze. I am currenttly working on a document that will have attribution info for every R5 and above variety for early US coinage. I can’t wait until I have a full-time job and can afford to expand the price bracket I can cherrypick in. My current maximum is $300, so I would have passed this one over.
I'm having trouble seeing the second crack, from the left wing around United. I see the one in the center that all O-114s have. The EDS, O-114, is actually much rarer than the later O-114a.
