Or is it Shattered - Part 8 ?

About that potential upgrade to the 1855 half dime featured in my "Shattered - Part 7" posts... Back in August, Heritage had an NGC MS66 up for auction. I peeked at it in the fourth session of the Gardner sale last year, but passed in favor of higher priority items. At that time it was in a different NGC holder, graded MS65, with a green CAC sticker. This is one of several ex-Gardner half dimes that have reappeared, upgraded, since the Gardner sales.

In the more recent offering, I looked more closely and noted that it is also a V-4, with the crack across the reverse, but in the earlier state without all the additional drama. It is a better coin than the one I already had, and would make a nice, different-die-state companion to it. I decided to get it if the price stayed close to the prior result. It did.

The Heritage photo of the reverse is shown below. Compare with the photo in my Shattered - Part 7 post (http://coins.www.collectors-society.com/JournalDetail.aspx?JournalEntryID=17672). See if you agree with my assessment of the order of the die states.

With this coin, I now am fortunate to own 13 of the business strike Liberty Seated half dimes from the Gardner collection.

Alan

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