Seated And Bust Half Dollars- Grade And Value?

I'll never understand the appeal of this sort of thing, but it's your money.



to the CCF!

I understand.
Not too far from where I am sitting is a rock that has had Lock Ness written on it in Permanent marker. So what? Its a rock!

Yes, but its an actual piece of Loch Ness. But...but...its just a rock!

No matter where I travel, one of the most cherished souvenirs I get is a rock - about fist sized or larger. A legitimate piece from Loch Ness; The Great Salt Lake; Lake Erie; the Bay of Fundy; a piece of rock blasted from the (literal) face of the Crazy Horse monument; a boulder sized chunk of coquina from Daytona; a ballast rock from Augusta; 4-corners (near - where it was legal to take a rock!); a Pony Express station (nearby - where it was legal to take a rock); etc. etc. And they are all labeled/engraved as to their origin. I have a tiny set I picked up on European travels (big rocks don't carry so well on planes) - and one from right at Ground Zero NYC.

So you have holed coins from the early 1800s - who touched them? Where were they spent...and on what? Were they on a battlefield of the Civil War? Who in the world took the time to put a hole in them (and likely before the convenience of electric drills!)?

This is what happens when you put history into a more prominent spot of a hobby than the aesthetics of some of the hobby items.

If perfect examples of these coins were a dime a dozen, then I would understand not paying anything for a holed one. But when starting out, or when getting the first of a type set and not wanting to pay a whole lot, these are still a legit piece of early American history and have their own mysteries and amazement associated with them.

But, what do I know? I collect glass insulators as avidly as coins, and recently I have gotten into restoring old hand tools for the history aspect.