1877 S Trade Dollar Variety

This certainly looks like the micro variety. IMHO, it might bring a modest premium of under 50%. It's been my experience that there's extremely limited demand for these minor varieties, many of which Breen termed "rare" or the like. While very small numbers of varieties akin to this likely exist, it's demand that drives the value, be it real or perceived. If this series was highly collected as a date set, and were there an album hole for this variety, its' dollar value would surely be more inflated.

The Buffalo nickel is by comparison a far more collectable series than are the Trade dollars; this, for many reasons. Some albums have holes for the overdate and tree-leg varieties, and that drives demand. There are many two-feather date varieties in that series, none of which have as yet earned an album hole. Years ago, I encountered a dealer who deemed these varieties rare and was asking between $100-$300 for different specimens in his case. He declined my offer to sell him some different dates at an average of under $20, each. Apparently, he didn't experience sufficient demand to maintain his stock.

Getting back to the Trade dollar, I've never known a dealer who sought the small mintmark variety for a customer, and probably few dealers could even recognize its existence. Finding a buyer who is willing to pay a significant premium for this variety may prove as challenging as finding the coin, itself!