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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;fiddlehead, post: 2737529, member: 31286&quot;]Hi folks.&nbsp; This variety of the 1840 half dollar is rare enough in its entirety but there are also two sub-varieties.&nbsp; WB-101 is the main variety and WB-12 seems to be a sub-variety of that.&nbsp; There are in the Gobrecht Journal schematics of how each of the varieties were created by mating various obverse and reverse dies.&nbsp; According to those journals the standard WB101 has the first of two obverses and all seem to have been made with the same 1839 bust reverse.&nbsp; The question I have is this:&nbsp; Dealers seem to contend that the WB12 obverse coin is the rarer of the two.&nbsp; However, I can&#039;t find any evidence to back this up.&nbsp; In fact, I have seen very few standard 101&#039;s for sale recently and several wb12&#039;s.&nbsp; So how can a collector know if one variety is in fact more rare than another when there is no official record of existing examples?&nbsp; For example, right now, I know of three (O)&#039;s for sale and all are Wb-12&#039;s.&nbsp; I saw a few others recently and 2 out of three were 12&#039;s.&nbsp; Here&#039;s an example of each variety - both circulated and both with CAC.&nbsp; The best way to tell the difference seems to be the position of the date&nbsp; (the wb-101 on top WB-12 on bottom) (you can tell that the reverses are the same based on the die crack from the A in America):</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]624245[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]624246[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>So, really - is this just a widely accepted hype that tends to increase the asking price on a WB-12, or are these sorts of issues based on some sort of facts?&nbsp; Heritage seldom identifies the wb-12 variety by name, but a quick scan of the 30 examples there shows that the wb-12 may be a minority but is well represented.&nbsp; So, what do you think?&nbsp; Is anyone here able to shed light on the issue?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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