The GFRC Open Set Registry Community Project

Liberty Seated Half Dollars - Top 100 Die Varieties

The following registry sets are an extract of information on Liberty Seated Half Dollar die varieties that literally took decades of cooperative research and collecting efforts between my good friend and numismatic colleague, Randy Wiley, and me, Bill Bugert. Any or all of the three sets, ranging from a basic date/mint set to a lengthy and nearly impossible Ultimate die variety set, can be chosen as a collecting goal. Financial resources, patience, deciding on a reasonable grade for your collection, and available time will most likely influence the goal you chose. Once you make up your mind, I believe you will experience countless hours of enjoyment with these beautiful coins.

I am sure some will challenged me as to why I included some varieties and not others or why I chose to make The Ultimate Variety Set so difficult. Answers can be flushed out in time but I wanted to present a genuine challenge regardless of your interest in Liberty Seated Half Dollars. I think I accomplished that. Here are the three sets.

The Basic Strikes Set lists the date and mint set for the half dollar series, a total of 111 coins. The stopper is the 1878-S but a collector can also be financially challenged by the later date 1850s-P mints, 1855-S, and most of the CC's. Completing a Basic Set is a major accomplishment and the goal of many half dollar collectors.

The Ultimate Variety Set includes 329 of the most desirable half dollar varieties currently known to exist. This list is about 1/4th of the die marriages known to Randy Wiley and myself. The other die marriages, in my mind, may not be less significant but may be less readily identifiable. For example, the remaining marriages encompass minor mintmark or date placement variations, less significant date or mintmark recuttings, die lines and gouges resulting of minor die maintenance, and the like. Assembling this Ultimate Variety Set can be a lifelong goal limited by the 1853-O NA for which there are three known to exist. Many other varieties are prohibitively rare but possibly obtainable (e.g., 1842 SDSL). If anything, this list gives the reader a lengthy list of the major varieties that can be used as a checklist for coin show bourse or internet searches. My hat is off to anyone who can complete this set.

The Top 100 Varieties is the intermediate step for the advanced collector as it is not as impossible as the The Ultimate Variety Set. It adds the most important varieties to the Business Strike Set. For identification, The Complete Guide to Liberty Seated Half Dollars has photographs of many of these varieties. Various issues of The Gobrecht Journal depict others. Many of these are much less available than commonly thought and, therefore, will be a challenging set to complete.

Good luck on your search. Whatever your collecting goal may be, I, and others, look forward to seeing the results of your efforts.

- Bill Bugert

Rating: The weighted average of all coin grades (i.e. aggregated sum of each coin grade + CAC premium multiplied by its rarity factor divided by the sum of all rarity factors). Missing coins are included and assigned a grade of 0. This metric is the basis for order rank.

Complete: The number of coin entries divided by the total number of coins in the Set.

Weighted Grade: The weighted average of all coin grades (see calculation above), but excluding any missing coins.

%: The ratio of coins certified by CAC (either green or gold sticker). Calculated as the number of CAC coins divided by the total number of entered coins.

Rarity Factor: The rarity assessment for each date or variety is based on availability in grades of EF-AU and uses a scale of R-1 through R-8 with a R-1 weight being the most common while a R-8 weight being the most difficult to locate. Rarity estimates are from Bill Bugert.