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 Replies: 10 / Views: 1,616 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
675 Posts |
I have been casually looking into early U.S. half eagles (capped bust and turban head designs) and it seems that everything I find are in XF+ condition and are extremely pricey, with the exception of badly cleaned or damaged coins. Looking at auction archives it seems almost impossible to find a more circulated example. I am sure that this is largely due to most of these issues not circulating much.
Are there any dealers who specialize in early gold who might have seem well circulated pieces (VG to VF)? I am not at all ready to purchase but hope to add these to my collection someday, and want to start gaining more knowledge about what is out there....
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Pillar of the Community
United States
9395 Posts |
Another possible factor is that a large percentage of these pre-1834 ("old tenor") gold coins were melted down when the newer coins came out at reduced weight starting in 1834. Many of the survivors may be above-average coins that were set aside and not spent.
I would guess that any early half eagles that are attractive to collectors are going to be expensive.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
807 Posts |
I have no doubt that the series was heavily melted, with most surviving pieces having been saved out as curiosities, & thus likely to be in better condition.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
5828 Posts |
Crap. Looks like
a) If I work hard over the summer I might be able to afford a crappy one.
or
b) I wont get one until I'm 16 and get a real job
or even
c) THE BANK HAS ONE!
Hahaha...
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Valued Member
United States
246 Posts |
I deal with a fair amount of gold at work of all types,
Early Eagles are very very few and far between.
Perhaps 1 for every 200-300 more modern pre 1933 gold
Best of luck though
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Moderator
 United States
23522 Posts |
Keep in mind, these derived their monetary value specifically from their weight. Well-worn ones are likely to be pulled from circulation and melted, and the merchants of the day would be cooperative in the effort to assuage their sharper customers.
Go try and find a well-worn Sovereign, to illustrate my point.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
675 Posts |
The other difficulty I would have is pricing one if I were able to find it. Let's say I can find a nicely circulated piece that I like. With pretty much no auction results from VF-20 and lower, I wouldn't know what a 'fair price' would be. I did see a Capped Bust $5 in Good-6 condition a month or two ago. The price was 3/4 of what I have seen some of the XF-40s sell for. That seemed a bit high to me, but if there are so few available perhaps that price was reasonable (supply and demand).
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
There will always be pressure on the lower end of the Classic Gold market due to the many who want but can't afford/don't want the single-coin investment to get in to the more costly ones. Like yourself.  |
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Pillar of the Community
861 Posts |
The reason you don't see low grade early $5 Bust gold is there is no demand for low quality $5 Bust's. If there was demand, you would see them offered for sale. Very few collectors want a low grade ugly looking $5 Bust. Actually, worn out gold, sub VF, is unwanted in any series. Real collectors want higher quality coins and casual collectors will be happy to pay $10 for a worn-out Lincoln Cent, but, not $1000 for a worn out $5 Bust. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1748 Posts |
That is true g048406, out of all my DE's there are no sub VF coins. The majority are mint state coins, followed by XF, VF and AU.
Edited by DoubleEagle20
05/06/2015 9:42 pm
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21786 Posts |
With the early parts of this series, I would prefer a cleaned example with more detail, than a more wore worn specimen.
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Replies: 10 / Views: 1,616 |
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Posted 05/05/2015 6:29 pm
