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Barber Half
(Halves) Dollar
Barber Half Dollars For Sale
History of
the Barber Half
The Barber
Half Dollar, once know as the “Liberty Head Half”, was minted from 1892
to 1915. In 1887, Mint Director James P. Kimball noted in his annual
report the “inferiority of our coinage” compared to other advanced
nations and that in his opinion, the coinage of
the U.S. was out of date and should be changed. At the request of
Kimball, Senator Justin S. Morill introduced a bill authorizing the
Treasury Department to redesign coins without first obtaining the
permission of Congress, as
long as the current design had been in use for at least 25 years. The
bill passed on
September 26, 1890 and the dime, quarter and half dollar
were targeted for change. The decision of who should redesign the coins
eventually fell to his successor, Edward O. Leech.
Ironically,
new designs were submitted by Mint engravers throughout the early 1880’s
but the only change that occurred was a new nickel designed by Charles
E. Barber in 1883. In 1891, when there was
discussion of a public
competition for new designs. Barber reported to Mint director Kimball
that there was no one in the country capable in assisting him in
preparing original designs. Augustus Saint-Gaudens confided to Kimball
there were only four men in the world competent do to such a redesign:
three were in France and he was the fourth. It did not matter. Kimball
insisted that rather than going abroad to find the best design talent
available, it would be possible to find able designers in America.
Against the advice of Barber, the Treasury Department organized a
competition to produce new designs. A panel of 10 of the leading artist
and sculptors of the day were commissioned to judge which would be the
best designs for new coinage. The panel met and instead of discussing
the competition, they instead rejected the terms of the competition as
proposed by Mint officials on the ground that the preparation time was
too short and the compensation woeful. The Mint director rejected the
panels’ suggestions and threw the competition out to the public. The
results were disastrous. Of the more than 300 drawings submitted, only
two received an honorable mention by a smaller judging panel. It is
interesting to note that two of the judges were Barber and
Saint-Gaudens.
When Leech
took over as Mint director, he was well aware of the problems his
predecessor had experienced. In order to get new designs into
production and avoid another disaster of a competition, he simply
directed Barber to draw up new designs. This is what Barber had wanted
all along has he felt as Chief Engraver, he, and he alone was
responsible for coin design.
The result
was not much in the way of originality. That would have to wait for
more than another 25 years. What Barber did was to modify the large
head used on the Morgan dollar by adding a Liberty cap and cropping
Liberty’s hair shorter in back. She is also facing the opposite
direction of the dollar. He then placed his initial B on the truncation
of the neck. This was the design used not only on the half dollar, but
the new dime and quarter as well.
The reverse
of the coin depicts the Great Seal of the United States and shows an
eagle with outstretched wings, holding an olive branch with thirteen
leaves in its right claw and a shear of 13 arrows in its left. There is
a ribbon with the motto E PLURIBUS UNUM being held in the eagle’s beak
and 13 stars are in the field.
The half
dollar was introduced in 1892 just as the new dime and quarter were. In
1916, no half dollars were produced and the Barber coinage would give
way to a whole new era of coin designs. During the total run of 24
years, just fewer than 136 million Barber halves were produced with no
mint producing more than 6 million in any given year. It is interesting
to note, that in the first year of the Kennedy half, over 400 million
were produced, more than double in one year than the entire series of
the Barber half.
Collectibility
General
The Barber half-dollar series
consists of 73 regular issues, plus one major variety, the 1892 micro O.
Barber halves enjoy a solid collector audience, but mostly in lower
grades (AG-VF). Except for a handful, most years and mints can be
collected for under $20 in G condition and are readily available. Most
Barber Halves are in lower grades due to being heavily
circulated. Back in the day of Barber coinage, the Barber coins were
the main coins in use for the general population. A dime, quarter or
half dollar could buy quite a bit of supplies and people just could not
afford to save them. With a low relief, the coin wore well. Even
many of the more rare dates are heavily worn. In higher grades,
the cost to assemble an entire collection is simply to cost prohibitive
for most collectors. Most BU coins in MS-63 or better run well over
$1,000 per coin.
Key/Semi Key Dates
There are no real keys in the Barber series.
There are numerous semi-keys though. There are 21 dates/mints that had
production totals fewer than one million and 3 dates had mintages under
200,000, the 1913 P, 1914 P and 1915 P. Even though those totals are
extremely low, compared to the 1909 S VDB that had a mintage of 484,000
and will cost you over $700 in G4, the 3 “keys” in the Barber series can
be had for around $100 or less. Also a little more expensive to obtain
will be the 1892-O, 1892-S, 1893-S, 1897-O and 1897-S. Each one of
these will set you back at least $200 or more, but with a little looking
around, they are readily available.
Errors/Varieties
There are real significant errors within the
Barber series. There is one well known variety, the 1892 micro-O. The
regular 1892-O only had a mintage of 390,000, making the variety very
scarce. The small mint mark apparently came from a quarter punch.
Apparently this was noticed rather quickly and fixed as there are only a
handful of micro-O’s known to exist.
Proofs
The Barber series has a proof coin for each
regular year of production, although only a few thousand or less were
produced for each year. In MS-65 condition, each coin will cost $3000
or more to obtain. For more information on
collecting Barber Halves visit www.coin-articles.com.
Vital
Statistics Summary
Key Coin
Info
Designed by: Charles E.
Barber
Issue dates: 1892-1915
Composition: 0.900 part silver, 0.100 part copper
Diameter: 30.6 mm.
Weight: 192.9 grains
Edge: Reeded
Business strike mintage: 135,916,889
Proof mintage: 17,313
Mintage
Date
Mint Mintage
1892 P 935,245
1892 O 390,000
1982 S 1,029,028
1893 P 1,826,792
1893 O 1,389,000
1893 S 740,000
1894 P 1,148,972
1894 O 2,138,000
1894 S 4,048,690
1895 P 1,835,218
1895 O 1,766,000
1895 S 1,108,086
1896 P 950,762
1896 O 924,000
1896 S 1,140,948
1897 P 2,480,731
1897 O 632,000
1897 S 933,900
1898 P 2,956,735
1898 O 874,000
1898 S 2,358,550
1899 P 5,538,846
1899 O 1,724,000
1899 S 1,686,411
1900 P 4,762,912
1900 O 2,744,000
1900 S 2,560,322
1901 P 4,268,813
1901 O 1,124,000
1901 S 847,044
1902 P 4,922,777
1902 O 2,526,000
1902 S 1,460,670
1903 P 2,278,755
1903 O 2,100,000
1903 S 1,920,772
1904 P 2,992,670
1904 O 1,117,600
1904 S 553,038
1905 P 662,727
1905 O 505,000
1905 S 2,494,000
1906 2,638,675
1906 D 4,028,000
1906 O 2,446,000
1906 S 1,740,154
1907 2,598,575
1907 D 3,856,000
1907 O 3,946,000
1907 S 1,250,000
1908 1,354,545
1908 D 3,280,000
1908 O 5,360,000
1908 S 1,644,828
1909 2,368,650
1909 O 925,400
1909 S 1,764,000
1910 418,551
1910 S 1,948,000
1911 1,406,543
1911 D 695,080
1911 S 1,272,000
1912 1,550,700
1912 D 2,300,800
1912 S 1,370,000
1913 188,627
1913 D 534,000
1913 S 604,000
1914 124,610
1914 S 992,000
1915 138,450
1915 D 1,170,400
1915 S 1,604,000
Barber Half News
Updated : Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:50:49 GMT+00:00
Publ.Date : Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:31:17 GMT+00:00
Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:30:02 GMT+00:00
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Coin show slated for this weekendGadsden TimesThe semi-annual event always attracts hundreds of coin enthusiasts from across north Alabama. Nikki Vaughn, of Boaz, looks over some Barber dimes at the ... |
Publ.Date : Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:39:02 GMT+00:00
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