How Did Coins From The Mid 1800-S Survive In Such High Grades.

The harder question to answer is how to gem to superb gem 19th century examples survive and enough so that a number of collectors can still find them? I believe that once minted they went into bags. Just the jostling around of plopping out of the minting machine and then going into a bag would likely start adding marks to at least take the vast majority of these coins out of the superb gem arena. Although, I'm sure a lucky few make it and only a tiny portion of those are handled with gentle enough care to make it in our hands today. One could surmise that collectors made their way to the Mints and specifically asked for special care of newly minted specimens and that's how some survive in the great shape we see them today.

One particular series and denomination comes to mind - Capped Bust Halves. As many of you know, In addition to the healthy mintages they were shipped from bank to bank and not released into circulation until needed. Capped Bust quarters of the same date and condition are more expensive than CB halves today, because they were more the workhorse of local commerce, and so did not survive as much in high grades..