Seated Liberty Halfs--What Can You Tell Me

A good choice since you would like higher grade and since you can't afford to collect the whole set would be an XF-AU or better date set with any mintmark for each date. This is a doable set, will be very impressive, and will still be a challenge to complete.

Regarding that 1857-S from fairtraderz: that is quite a scarce date and their asking price for a no-problem AU example would be an excellent deal for the buyer IMO. I doubt that coin is without problems, however. Miss Liberty's eye, hair, and ear look odd and there is a hit on her nose that bothers me. I wonder whether this area was damaged and re-tooled to hide the problem. The obverse color also seems abnormal. The reverse is more pleasing and the mintmark seems to be the right style.

This seller generally offers good stuff and this coin looks genuine. However, if a buyer expects it to slab as a problem-free AU at PCGS or NGC I think they will be disappointed.

if you do a date set from 1839 to 1878 you wont have to contend with the fairly expensive later dates. you will stay plenty busy even doing a "one a year" set. 1850-1852 P mints are really tough, the early CC mints are really hot and you will most likely pay far above any published price guide in order to own them. the 78-s is the set stopper, and the numismedia value of $20k seems like a lot of money... that is until you try to find one priced at "book value" good luck ! heritage sold an AG 78-s last oct for ... are you sitting down? ... $28k the 1879-1891 dates are low mintage but were obviously saved in quantity, as they arent all that difficult to find, just pricey compared to the more common dates. any seated specialist will have those dates available if you are determined to buy them. again, my advice is do a one a year set to 1878, and from there decide if you want to dive in deeper. a person can tie up alot of resources (and time) building even a low end set

by the late 1870's numismatics was still a hobby enjoyed by relatively few people, but the hobby was growing and the coin dealers of the time were aware of the low mintages of these coins and many were saved, this is evident by the fact that the lower grades (such as G-VG) are actually quite a bit scarcer than the AU and MS pieces. the exact opposite is true for the 1878-s, where few still exist and the majority of those are lower grade. coin collecting was much more popular in the eastern states, and so the branch mint coins werent saved in nearly the numbers that the P mints were.

if you decide to do a raw set, id go with a dansco, replace the pages with half dollar blanks, then use a clear label printer for the dates, better to use removable labels though, this gives you the freedom to change your collection as it grows, much easier to peel off a label than to black out one date and write another... and it looks MUCH nicer.

amp, a little background on the CC coins... most Seated coins started out as silver refined to 99.99% alloyed with 10% pure copper for durability. the early (1870-1874) CC coins were minted from raw silver ore, straight from the ground (this has been proven by metallurgical testing) natural silver ore is not pure. it contains many elements that do not hold up well to the environment, and thus many of the CC coins we find today are corroded, porous, or just plain ugly. also, the early CC coins were minted in small numbers and used heavily, these factors contributed to a very low survival rate. it wasnt that the CC mint sucked at striking coins, it was the deck being stacked against the coins from the beginning. I've always hypothesized that the few decent looking CC coins that exist today, probably spent most of their circulation life back in the eastern states.