1821 Capped Bust Quarter (Cleaned? Die Crack?)

Not sure about the coin itself, but I wouldnt buy a coin of that value unslabbed personally

It would keep you from losing your shirt on a coin that is potentially very valuable if it does not have any problems. Those images look like scans which are nice for showing detail but tend not to show the true color of the coin. VF is @$600 while EF is almost 3x more valuable @$1710 per Numismedia, that is a huge spread and the value will be greatly affected if this coin has been cleaned.



It would only add a premium if it was a diagnostic for a rare Browning variety.


Unless the dealer is an old-school EACer, a dealer that dislikes slabs tends to be one that likes to sell problem coins but not disclose the problems.

That's a B-3, which shows the crack in later die states. Yours looks nearly terminal. This die pair was originally used to strike Proofs, and then passed on to business strikes. You should also see signs of arrowhead clashing around star 8. R.2 as a business strike, but yours being such a late die state is both somewhat rarer and possibly more valuable to the right buyer.

Touch to call from a scan, but I'm inclined to think this one's recovering from a very old cleaning. The more open areas of the reverse field look "darker" than they ought, which under most scanners means it's brighter than I'd expect of a coin with such patina elsewhere. As regards details, yeah, it's got a very good claim at EF40.

SsuperDdave, thanks. You are on to something that I don't understand. B-3, terminal, R.2, star 8. I don't understand. I guess I should understand this before assessing a possible value. Can you direct me somehow? Thanks again.


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It's just that I can get this coin at around $700 and I was wondering if it was worth it.

BTW, I was wondering if there's a way you can "quote" with a button click rather than manually entering the quote forum codes.

basebal21, it's just his opinion. I have plenty of slabbed coins (even some MS-70 which he swears can't be higher than MS-69) which I have fought with him over. You're probably right, he doesn't have the eye to tell the difference, or he refuses to pay the difference between increased grades.

This coin might be of additional interest to one who collects them by variety. There are many such collectors of this early silver. They've been studied and researched for so long that rarity estimates (the R.2 I mentioned) are considered pretty accurate, giving the buyer more confidence that rarity-based price variations are worthwhile.

I've been researching this one pretty extensively last night and today. My "always stop here" site, Heritage Auctions' incredible archive, indicates they've offered almost 60 attributed B-3's. Perhaps a third of them show the die crack in various stages, none any later than yours.

Heritage has archived so many sales that certain inferences regarding rarity can be made just from their results, with the understanding that things are skewed a bit by the fact that they'll tend to be selling the "more collectible" examples of a given coin - for this one, I'd guess the lower grades will be underrepresented because they're not particularly hard to find. It would have been a popular denomination for the day, and therefore saw plenty of circulation.

Up in this coin's grade, though, things begin getting scarce. Fewer than half of Heritage's results are XF40 and above, and only 4 have ever been offered (going back to 1993) in Mint State. I'd expect those grades to be more likely to appear due to their collectibility, indicating to me that they're scarce indeed especially considering the relatively-large mintage for the period.

I will not hazard a definitive opinion regarding the originality of this coin's surfaces from scans, but it seems to me to be an easy EF40 with a shot at 45. In a "righteous" (graded, not Genuine-designated for cleaning or something else) PCGS slab, this would be worth $1400-1800 at retail, I think. Prices bounce around a bit, depending on the enthusiasm of the particular pool of buyers viewing the coin. If I were liquidating it, I'd hold it for consignment to one of the signature yearly auctions of whatever house chosen, guaranteeing the largest potential audience.

I'd be sore tempted at $700.

The quality of your dealer's opinion isn't really relevant to this discussion. Assuming he's up on the value of this coin, he's offering it to you for the "cleaned" price. And his opinion won't matter as regards resale, because your audience of potential buyers will vanish if the coin isn't in a reputable slab.

This coin needs to be in plastic, preferably PCGS'. Even if it's a Genuine designation - the scans indicate that even if cleaned, it's not a harsh cleaning. A discerning buyer would likely be happy to throw $700 at you for it in a Genuine slab. And if you get it into *any* righteous slab, you've just doubled your investment.

He honestly just sounds like a sleezy dealer looking to take advantage of his customers, rip people off, or his ego is out of control. Either way hes not someone I would do business with.

Arguing over whether a pcgs 70 is a 70 is insane. If it developed some spotting fine the price can be debated, but saying its really a 69 is just trying to rip people off. I would have said I have 9 that came back 69s at home, Ill take youre word for it that this is a 69 if you take my word for it the 69s are 70s.

And at some point I would just say enough, your word isn't even close to theirs and either pay me for a 70 or I'm leaving.

But like dave said the coin does need to be in plastic to sell it yourself. Which also brings up the question of why this one isn't. You ALWAYS see coins of this value graded, its just much much much easier to sell. So why isn't this one? What does he know about this coin that you dont that hes trying to hide but not sending it in?





If you use the reply to thread link at the top of the thread theres a quote button in there 2nd from the right on the format line

Yes, I see this, but this is barely a step above what I was doing myself. I guess there's no way of pressing a button within someone's post to automatically get a quote of his post. Many other forums have a feature to do this.