Those Fabulous Barber Dime Semi-Keys

There's been a lot of talk recently about barbers and good buys especially among dimes. I've made Barber dimes my pet project being as how I really love them the most of all dimes. I don't know why I love them most, but there is just something about them, not to mention the thrill of the hunt when trying to build a nice set in F or above. So I thought, I'd give you a little breakdown in my list of Semi-Key Barber dimes and their values. Just for your viewing pleasure, here is my own latest buy an 1895 S quite the semi key and not bad in VF.







Now about the Semi Keys: If you consider the 94-s to be unattainable and the 95-o to be the only key coin, that leaves a list of semi keys in my view that is 13 coins. All but one of these coins has a mintage under one million (that being the 1895-S at 1.12 mil).
In order of desirability one should look at purchasing the following as hard to find semi-key barbers (extremely so in some cases) that are guaranteed to go up in value because these are the ones everyone needs and in almost all cases the ones hardest to find.

1901-S mintage 593,022 rated as an R3 in G through F.
1896-S mintage 575,056 rated R3 in G, R4 in F.
1896-O mintage 610,000 rated same as 96-s
1895 mintage 690,880 same as above.
1903-S mintage 613,300 same as above.
1894-O mintage 720,000 same as above.
1897-O mintage 666,000 same as above. (although very HTF)
1892-S mintage 990,710 same as above.
1904-S mintage 800,000 same as above but dropping back to R3 in VF.
1895-S mintage 1.12 mil rated R2 in G R3 in F.
1913-S mintage 510,000 (2nd lowest mintage in series) R2 in G R3 in F
1909-D mintage 954,000 rated R2 in G R3 in VG-VF (prices do not reflect rarity on this one)
1915-S mintage 960,000 rated R2 in G and VG, R3 in F and VF (again prices do not reflect rarity)

Now I know a couple of you are saying that there are other coins I could include on this list but this is my list of keys and I really like this list just the way it is. Now the first 5 coins can be had in the $80-85 range for a specimen in G the next three for $65-75 in G; the next two run in the 40's the 13-S in the mid twenties and the last two can be had for under $10 in G.

But the real challenge here is finding coins that you can afford in Grades of VG-8 to F-12, because this is where most of the sharp inclines in prices lay and if you can get a better date that is just slightly undergraded you stand to profit by it both from a monetary and collection standpoint. The 1901-S for example makes a price leap of over $200 from VG to F, the 1896-S makes a leap of about $120, and so on and so forth. The 1913-S makes the smallest leap of about $50 between the grades of VG and F. This price leap holds true for all of the list except the last two which never really make a large price leap in between grades preferring to go up in value more linearly, but strangely enough despite their rarity the 1909D can be had for just under $100 in VF and the 1915S under $75 in XF. Two very good buys...if you can find them. But you can see from above you can make great additions to your collection by finding F coins for a VG price. Some dealers won't give a coin a F unless you can see a complete liberty, but according to the ANA guide says ll the letters must be visible buy may be weak. In reality if you have a full LI and TY and at least half of BER showing, usu the upper half. The coin is a fine.

As for this list I would also recommend searching out an 1897-O as fast as possible as problem free specimens are harder to find than the rarity scale indicates in VG and better. I would be remiss if I failed to say there are also many minor keys that can be snapped up on this list, but if you see any Barber before 1900 in F or Better it would make an excellent acquisition.