1901-S Barber Half Dollar - Do You Agree With NGC?

Since there isn't much value difference between the lower grades,
I wouldn't worry too much about it, relative to the slab grading and shipping fees.

Actually there is a big jump in value between VG8 and F12 on this coin, like over $200. I wouldn't be happy with the grade either.

another undergraded coin. the good thing is that if you paid VG $$ for it you made out.

keep in mind kbbpll that in todays grading you can't just look at one marker to establish grade. one must look at the overall coin and the other markers as well. also, TPG's are not infallible. I can't count how many times we have come across undergraded or overgraded coins here.

in addition. we are looking at photos and do not have the coin in hand. light glare, angle and focus all come into play as to what we see. these photos are quite good and fairly easy to grade. other issues that apply are the mint and date of the coin. problems at a particular mint or series can affect grade. for instance we know early bust half dollars are typically very weakly in certain areas. thats the way it left it mint. does one lower the grade since that occurred at the mint? TPG's think so from what we have seen. lots of things to consider and a lifetime of learning and thats why grading is very subjective and not objective. photograde can get you into the ballpark but don't rely solely on that to grade a coin.

you have been here a while so I'm sure you probably have seen this before. this is more for anyone new coming in that may not have the knowledge base yet

You were correct, it did not go unnoticed. Sold for Fine pricing in a Heritage auction tonight.

Heritage had some strong bidding in with the Barber half's tonight. I had to pay up well over price guide for the two I won. They were very choice examples though.

$264 with BP.

The interesting thing about this coin is that it is Reverse 2, recently discovered hub type published in BCCS journal, introduced in 1901. Previously there was only one reverse hub type documented. The difference is in the spacing of BUS in the banner relative to the beak, and the left banner end is angled and not straight on the second type. 1901 had both reverse types, and O and S mints also sporadically produced both through 1905. After seeing Rev2 on this coin, I started poking around and determined that only one reverse 2 die was used for 1901-S, but it was paired with both obverse 1 and obverse 2 (long documented obverse types). So a relative scarce reverse type. I doubt that it was a factor in the bidding though since hardly anybody outside BCCS knows about it.

NGC says
So yes, not many collectors even look for the well-known obverse types. Now there are three combos for 1901-S that I'm aware of - Obv1/Rev1, Obv1/Rev2 (subject coin), and Obv2/Rev2 (new obv paired with the same Rev2 die). Might be a fun project to collect them all but not that interesting for most people and the rev differences take a lot of effort to ID.