CAC Gold, that is... and other colors

Because the Liberty Seated Half Dimes I still need for my main set are not frequently available, I have started collecting interesting varieties. One that is visually obvious is the 1844 with repunched date. In the earliest die states, multiple extra impressions of the 1, 8, and first 4 are apparent.

It is not clear how many reverse dies were paired with the obverse die in question. Nevertheless, repunched date examples for 1844 are more common than normal date examples. Despite that reality, the market has priced them a little bit higher than their normal date counterparts.

Heritage has sold four of the repunched date in certified grades of MS63 and higher so far in 2016: One in 63, three in 64. The 63 sports a gold CAC sticker and one of the 64s has a green one. Guess which coin realized the highest price...

MS63 NGC CAC gold $2585.00 colorful toning

MS64 PCGS CAC $1116.25 light toning

MS64 PCGS $ 493.50 dark toning

MS64 NGC $ 399.50 and $470 (sold twice) dark toning

At first look, the MS63 certainly is prettier than the others. It is colorfully toned, more attractively on the obverse than reverse. Based only on the photos, my guess is that it has the best luster of the bunch. But it also appears to have suffered more from contact than the others, though the toning does tend to conceal that from casual view. And it is a later die state, with only a single extra punching of the middle two digits apparent in the photo, while the other three are clearly from earlier die states. The earlier the better, in my book, when it comes to this type of variety.

I actually wanted to get the 63. But the bidding left me in the dust. The NGC and PCGS price guides (for normal date, they are incomplete for the RPD) put a 63 at roughly $450, a 64 at around $700, and a 65 at $1300-ish - prices not far from reality. A gold sticker is supposed to mean that CAC thinks the coin is under-graded, and would sticker it at a higher (unspecified) grade. (Please correct me if I am wrong about that.) I stopped bidding at a what I would call a strong 64 price.

So is an MS63 with a Gold CAC sticker worth MS66 money? I judged it to be a nice 64 at best. But opinions differ, as the buyer and under-bidder demonstrated. Perhaps I would have thought more highly of it had I gotten to examine it closely. Even so, 26 Benjamins seems like too much. I attribute the result to the desire for the gold CAC sticker and maybe the colorful toning (see the Heritage photo below). What do you think?

Alan

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