1838 Reeded 50c Gr-1

I am not sure what the GR-1 means but my own experience with the reeded edge capped bust halves is that was one of the harder coins to find for my 7070. There were lots of coins with weak strikes, so nice examples were scarce. I looked for quite awhile before finding the one for my 7070 which is high VF range in my opinion. I paid around $180.

A nice certified uncirculated CBH in MS61 sounds pretty attractive but of course it all comes down to asking price as to whether it is a good buy or not.

By dick Graham

There were 13 obverse and 13 reverse dies used in 1838 resulting in 16 different varieties, producing a reported mintage of 3,546,000 half dollars. Most varieties of 1838 are readily available in the collector grades, and can be found with nice original surfaces and eye appeal, but will require a little patience and perseverance to do so.
Only GR-5 has a Rarity of R-7(less than 9) all others are between r-1 to r-4. GR-1 is a R-3 with 300 to 400 in all grades.

OBVERSE:
Date level and evenly spaced, second 8 leans slightly to the left.
Arcing crack from rim-below star 6-forehead above the eye-hair above the ear-thru T in headband-cap-left side of star 7-rim.
REVERSEW:
Crossbars 1& 4 to second outside shield border on left.
LF DO weakly struck.
Crack from rim- up between OL in DOL- left claw- arrow feathers.
Crack from rim- through center of T!- left wing- curves down through left wing to arrow feathers.
Crack from one above up through center of shield-right wing- between RI in AMERICA- rim.

Lower Mint State grades can be a challenge for collectors acquire.

This book sells for around $60 to $70.

I bought the book for $60 in February of 2016 and even got an additional discount for buying several different books. CBjesse is the seller and he was once active on this forum. This is his side job and is a wonderful person to deal with. As for this reference book you can buy my copy just PM me.