1963-P $50 US Mint Bag - What Should I Be Looking For?

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Good Hunting!

1963 is an unusual year, Coop and I posted a lot of info just a day ago about the year.

Good luck on the bag ! I hope it was truly a mint sealed bag. Over the last 35 years, I have learned what to look for in mint sealed bags. Once I get my site up and running I'll do an article on identifying mint sealed bags. My point of contact at the Mint HQ says there is NO record whatsoever of them using anything other than the plain vanilla thread, and it must be chain stitched evenly across the bag.

Keep an eye out for an unusual date. http://www.coppercoins.com lists varieties associated with the 1963 year, some very minor, some major. The "L" in Liberty is another clue to a variety.

As coop has mentioned in the past, you will get to know your bag pretty quickly. Soon after identifying what varieties there are in a bag, you can quickly look for unique die markers and then sort these by piles or in ziplock containers. I use a microscope to look at the coins. A Loupe would take forever, and talk about eye strain !

Let us know if you pull anything amazing out of the bag. My best bag, out of say 30-40 of them has been the 1960-D, where I pulled out 6 varieties which brought me a total of 1500 coins. I was in awe, that's for sure. I thought the 1959-D bag with 500 varieties was awesome.

Happy Hunting !

For the microscope, you should be able to get a goose neck style lamp and have abundant light. No need to hold up a flashlight.
The road to looking at your coins is your decision, but there are alternatives.
I wrote up an article on here on how I personally look for and shoot pics of my coins.
It is here;
https://goccf.com/t/173936


But as for lighting, creativity can bring joy.
My lighting setup cost me about 30 bucks, and it works like a charm for searching and taking pics.




Once the eyes are adjusted I can quickly go through a bag looking for most obvious errors, in about a week to 10 days, part time.
Once you identify a handful of each variety, simply put each into separate piles. Then you can look at each pile and try to find a common identifier on each.
Then the rest of the coins in the bag can be searched super fast vice trying to scrutinze each coin looking for the same error.