I wanted to highlight another coin that I picked up on a recent trip to my favorite LCS. I went in that day looking for vintage silver but they didn't have any that was new to me so I walked over to the coins to take a look at what caught my eye. I am a visual shopper who tends to buy coins based on there I appeal and what looks good. The downside to this is I am not well versed in prices, and for shops like this that do not post their price on the coin it puts a lot of pressure on me to pick the coins I like and hope that they're within the price range, or I start googling prices like an idiot in store.
He has a lot of nice stuff, and I typically shy away from the Morgans and the peace tell this because I feel those are relatively common to find in a local point shop, but the ones around me tend not to have very much seated or bust era coins so I went straight to these.
I found this great looking 1835 cats plus half a dollar that I thought had a lot of eye appeal these photos a little bleached in my opinion compared to what it is in hand but is a pretty good representation.
There were 5,352,006 minted. That's a very interesting and odd number and who knows why they did that. The other interesting thing is they actually listed the metal content on PCGS as 89.2% silver versus the 90% that everyone is used to for our old money. I'm not sure if that was intentional or if that's all the closer they got.
I bought this coin he headed graded on the 2x2 as a very fine so let's dig in and take a look at this and compare it to the PCGS photo grade and see how it lines up
[pcgs coin facts](https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1835-50c/6168I ca)
pcgs photo grade
I think the reverse of this coin might be a bit higher than the front. The details to me on this pop somewhere around the very fine 30 mark. My only big concern is above the eagles head there seems to be a very low point in the coin around the a&t of states in the middle of e pluribus unum where there are several letters missing. I cannot attribute this to where is the surrounding areas are in very good condition and I'm wondering if this was a poor strike or a worn die or what could cause this. I don't see any other where or damage to the coin area so I'm thinking it must be natural to minting. It would be interesting to know if there is more information on this but I haven't had the time to look it up yet.
I really like the eagle in the back, it appears to be screaming as you can see it's tongue in between its beak and the shield and the breast of the eagle is still in great condition. Well there's a few small imperfections in the shield I still see pretty much complete lines across down and it has some nice patina that's filled in. Honestly it's in shockingly good condition considering it's age. 1835 was a long time ago, I hope to still have this coin when it's 200 years old.
Interestingly enough after getting this one and telling my coin collecting friend he sent me a text with a couple of other bust halves that he's considering selling off. One is in higher condition, well the other one has a ton of eye appeal and patina. It's going to be really hard to pick and I fear I'll try to end up buying both just because I tend to be a hoarder like that. I'm not sure how much care if I have two of the same here if I like both the coins. It'll take me awhile to get together with him and take a look at those so you won't be seeing those bus tabs anytime soon
