Webstore Help Page!

All Barber Half Mintages Below Six Million

By Paul M. Green
Numismatic News

If you are looking for fascinating coins, it would be safe to suggest that to find some real values the San Francisco Barber half dollars represent a perfect group to explore. The two facilities that basically produced Barber half dollars from their start in 1892 until their end in 1915 were Philadelphia and San Francisco. New Orleans and Denver also produced Barber half dollars, but neither had mintages from start to finish like San Francisco and Philadelphia.
In the case of the San Francisco Barber halves, there are some surprises and possibly more to come especially in Mint State as virtually any Barber half dollar is tough in Mint State grades.
With San Francisco Barber halves, unlike those from Philadelphia, there is no proof option. The Philadelphia dates can be tough in Mint State but more available and less expensive as proofs. No such option exists for the San Francisco dates. That means that, despite higher prices, some of the San Francisco Barber half dollars are much tougher than even their high prices suggest. It makes them a fascinating group to study. Buried away in their ranks are potentially some excellent values.
From the very start, the difficulty in finding some San Francisco Barber half dollars today in any grade is seen. The first, the 1892-S, had a mintage of 1,029,028, which while not high was also not low when it came to Barber half dollars. None has a mintage of even 6 million pieces. The real problem is that Barber half dollars as a group were not heavily collected at the time of issue.
There is no good reason for the lack of saving of Barber half dollars, but rather a variety of reasons. The first was basically that collectors at the time simply seemed to not like the new Barber coins. There is reason to believe that back in 1892 when the Barber half dollar made its debut there was more interest in the Columbian Exposition half dollar as the first commemorative than there was in the Barber half dollar as a new design on a circulating coin.
Certainly the denomination was a significant factor both in 1892 and in the years that followed. A half dollar was a significant amount of money for the collectors of the day, who in many cases were young and collecting from circulation. That would be the case for years, meaning that Barber half dollars were not saved in Mint State or even quickly enough to have save upper circulated grades. Supplies of many dates in even upper circulated grades are suspect, as the coins simply circulated for decades becoming worn to the point that they were in lower circulated grade or perhaps even so worn that they were retired from circulation and destroyed.
We certainly see all of these factors at work in the case of the 1892-S, which today lists for $250 in G-4. It is a somewhat surprising price as that is higher than many other dates with lower mintages, but when you have a situation where coins were not pulled from circulation by collectors you can get such surprising prices.
An available date Barber half in MS60 is $485, but the 1892-S is $975. In MS-65 an available date is $3,000, but the 1892-S lists for $5,500, and that is even with the normally heavy saving seen in the first year of a new design.
At the Professional Coin Grading Service they report a total of 13 examples of the 1892-S in MS-65 or better and a total of just 87 coins in all Mint State grades combined. Simply put, even though it is the first year of a new design, there is not a large supply of the 1892-S in Mint State.
There would be a similar situation in the case of the 740,000 mintage 1893-S, which today lists at $155 in G-4. At least with the 1893-S there is a good case to be made that it had a lower mintage, which helps to explain the G-4 price. Clearly, like the 1892-S, the price is higher than might be expected, suggesting that the 1893-S was lost in some numbers over the years.
In MS-60, the 1893-S is at $1,200 while an MS-65 is $27,500. Whoa. Obviously, the 1893-S is not readily available in Mint State grades, at least partially reflecting the normal decline in saving in the second year of a new design. Overall, that translates into just 36 examples seen in all Mint State grades combined and of that total just five were in MS-65 or better, explaining the high MS-65 price.