What’s Your Favorite Coin, Bryon?

By: Bryon Crowder

People would ask me what kinds of coins I like to collect. Being a smart-alec, I would humorously reply ‘Bargains!’ I think most collectors would agree that there is a certain smile you get when you buy a coin for significantly less than its value. This is what happened here.

I used to spend quite a bit of time each night looking thru eBay in foreign countries, like Australia, Canada, France, and most notably, The UK, or England. I didn’t just look for average,
ordinary US coins; but rather, specific key dates that would be worth my while if I won. This is how I won this auction.

I discovered a 1844-O half-dime listed by a Stamp and Coin Shop in England. The first thing I would do is email the seller and verify that they were willing to ship to the USA, and how much that shipping would cost. If everything was agreeable, then I would place a bid.

Years before, I attended a live auction where one of the coins was a 1846 dime. It was a good-looking coin. I won the bid for around $40. I couldn’t believe it. A few months later I listed the coin on eBay, and it sold for over $800. eBay had access to a far larger bidding audience than some country auction in Michigan with just a handful of collectors that were bidding.

I remember studying why this date was so expensive and noted that the half-dime was also expensive. Most of the dates in the early 1840’s from New Orleans were also pricy coins, even in
lower grades. I placed a bid on the 1844-O that would guarantee I would win. My winning bid, including shipping, was $146.

The coin arrived, and I showed it to several of my collector buddies whose opinions I respected. They all felt that the coin would be graded VF. I was thinking maybe a little more. I sent the
coin to be certified by NGC through Scott’s in Portage.

About 2 months later Scott called me and said the coins I had sent in were there. When I got there, he opened the box, and somehow, it felt a little like Christmas. Most of the coins came back at grades I expected. The 1844-O half-dime came back graded AU-53; and I broke into my happy dance. Scott offered to buy it, so I asked him to make me an offer. He broke out his Graysheet. He did not realize the coin at this grade was so expensive, and we mutually
agreed that I would keep the coin.

It turns out that there are two varieties for the mintmark in 1844: a large O and a small O, with the large O being slightly rarer, and slightly more valuable. This coin is the large O variety.

To establish a value for this coin, I started with Coin World. In XF-40 it is valued at $2500. In AU-50 there is no value listed because in higher grades this coin is not sold frequently enough to
establish a fair value. So, I dug through auction records and found two comparable coins for the previous 10 years. One of the coins sold for $2600, and the picture showed a coin covered in an
orange-reddish- yellow toning. Another coin sold for $2200 and also had distractions. My coin has nice, gray toning that looks very nice.

I also researched population reports for this date/mintmark, and between NGC, ANACS, and PCGS, there were appx 65 coins graded at or above AU-53. I think it would be safe to say that for this date and mintmark, this coin would place in the top 100 coins for the surviving population. I wonder what the last item this coin was spent on, and how did it wind up in England?