On a recent trip to my local coin shop, I saw a new coin offered for sale there: an 1859 Liberty Seated Half Dime graded MS66. Surprised to see such a nice-quality coin in his display, I opened the PCGS CoinFacts App on my cell phone and asked for a price. He said $800, so I purchased the coin and drove home surprised to purchase a gem-quality Liberty Seated coin for what seems cheap.
For those who study Liberty Seated coinage, the 1859 Half Dime has always been an unusual coin. It is placed into the Liberty Seated star obverse type, but it features a unique design to only that date, 1859, and that mint, Philadelphia. Featuring Engraver Anthony C. Paquet’s design of Liberty Seated, other dates of this series, including the New Orleans Mint issue of 1859, feature a different design based on Robert Ball Hughes’ design. The Liberty Seated design appears thinner with a different style of hair. “LIBERTY” is larger on a more curved ribbon and the stars on the obverse feature a different shape. Furthermore, 1859 was the last year of issue for the star obverse type; in 1860, the stars would be replaced with “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.”
The 1859 Half Dime also has a mintage of only 340,000 coins. In comparison to the key-date 1909-S VDB Lincoln Cent, with a mintage of 484,000, the 19th-century half dime seems like an incredible bargain. But that is the issue with coin with market of supply and demand pricing. Even with the low mintage of a uniquely designed coin the collector demand just isn’t there for these coins.
Another factor for determining a coin’s price is the number of surviving examples. And with the 1859 Half Dime, many high-grade examples survived. As of writing this, PCGS has graded 336 examples of this date in the grades of MS60 to MS68+. In 2005 far fewer examples had been certified by PCGS and a single MS68 sold for $29,900 by Bowers & Merena. In 2012, a group of these were submitted to PCGS all in superb gem quality, with every single coin grading between MS67 and MS68+. Today the population in MS66 by PCGS stands at 17 examples, with two in MS66+, 12 in MS67, another 16 in MS67+, three in MS68, and three more in MS68+, all of which has an impact on current prices for the 1859 Liberty Seated Half Dime.
There are many great coins out there that seem inexpensive given a multitude of factors. Regardless, the important thing is to collect what you like and have fun doing it. For me, picking up a gem-quality Liberty Seated coin fit that bill.