Any good advice on figuring out when a circulated Franklin Half may be a proof instead of a business strike? I paid a visit to my favorite pawn shop dive the other day to pursuse their junk silver tray and I picked up a couple of walking liberty halves and a couple of Franklins. I got home and noticed one of the Franklins was covered in some sort of sticky, tan mess that kind of reminded me of what remains when you take a sticker off of a plastic CD tray. I NEVER do this, but I decided (since it was junk silver anyway) to dry a little tap water and detergent to get the stick off of the coin. Two minutes (and a cotton t-shirt dry) later the coin was gorgeous. And it was SHINY. Could it be a proof strike instead of a business strike? Any good way to tell them apart? (It is a 1958 no-mark - Philly - for your information). Or did I completely ruin the coin and forever relegate the Frankie to the junk tray because of my home fix-it job?
the difference is pretty stark. The surfaces on a proof are beyond shiny. They are mirror brilliant. Anything short of that, you likely have a business strike. All proof Franklins were minted at Philadelphia, so no mint marks on proof coins, either. I would google search images of proof Franklins versus Unc ones and the difference becomes pretty apparent right away. HTH
Proof Franklins were all struck in Philadelphia from 50-63, using proof planchets and dies. These exhibit the same characteristics of proof coinage of that time, mirrored surfaces and reliefs, and they're most distinguishable from business strikes.
I think the difference MAY be easy to tell, but not so easy on problem coins like you have described. I've read a few recent threads in which folks went back and forth...can you post a pic?
You have to look beyond "shiny". Look at the strike. A Proof coin will have a full (or nearly full) strike. The rims will be full. The corners between the rims and edge will be square and sharp.
This is an old thread and most of the members that are on this thread haven’t been heard from on 7-8 years.
Many Proof 1950 and some 1951 half dollars have rather frosty, not mirrored finishes. You need to look at a number of Proofs from this era to get to know how they look. For most collectors, when you get to know how the Proofs, you can tell the difference. The Proofs have sharper rims and slightly sharper design details.
Since we're on the subject of Franklins...can someone explain how this series experiencef such a big decline from 2010-20 ? Was it just collectors from the 1950's and 1960's selling after half a century ? Was there expansion of the top pops from new finds and resubmissions ? I understand this was a very popular coin for collectors over the decades.
Almost EVERYTHING seems to have gone down from that period. I bought some scarce, high priced 18th and 19th century coins during that period, and they went down in price. The Franklin Half Dollar is a special case. Prices for them have gone up and down, like a yo-yo, for many years. The reason is that many thousands of them were saved in Mint State. They are something that promoters can push as “investments” with no fear of running out of inventory. The prices go up and down with the fad or promotion of the time. The Franklin Half market is a bit like the common date Morgan Dollars. The difference is the demand for Morgan Dollars is strong and steady while the interest in the Franklins is not.
Franklin Half Dollars had a very short shelf life. Morgan's and many gold coins had much longer stays.
I think gradeflation has something to do with it. When I started collecting franklins around 2010, MS 65’s were not tremendously abundant, MS 66’s were not seen very often and 67’s were nearly unheard of. Now 65’s are extremely common, 66’s are very easy to find and 67’s are all over the place. This is probably not entirely due to gradeflation. I imagine there have been many original rolls and mint sets broken open where higher grade coins have been found.
When I was a dealer, I found the grading for Franklin Half Dollars to be very inconsistent. I used to cherry-pick the under graded pieces and sell them for modest markups. They were quick sales. I don’t look at graded examples these days. I suspect that grading has gotten looser.
