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toned in iridescent shades of purple, plum, burgundy, green, orange, gold.....virtually every color of the rainbow, can sometimes us half dollars be found on a single coin! the design of the half franklin half, with the broad expanse of franklin''s bust on the obverse, and the liberty bell on the reverse, is an easy target for bagmarks or abrasion. a pristine franklin half, with a smooth, unblemished cheek of franklin on the obverse, dollars and equally pristine liberty bell on the reverse, is a truly beautiful coin. on the other hand, the simplicity of these surfaces also serves to magnify, or hilight, the smallest bagmark! the cheek of franklin & the liberty bell make easy targets. the quality of the typical uncirculated franklin roll is quite low, with all 20 coins usually grading between ms 60 and ms 63. by comparison, if one had the good fortune to acquire an original roll of uncirculated walking liberty half dollars (the series immediately preceding the franklins, minted from 1916-1947) the general quality of the coins would likely be quite high, with most coins grading ms 64 - ms 65. what about any hordes of gem bu franklins that have yet to surface? original unsearched bags of bu franklins? the last bag devoted to it. here is one final, very important similarly between the morgan dollar series and the cameo proof series: in grading prooflike morgan dollars, the two largest grading services in the nation, pcgs (professional coin grading service) and ngc (numismatic guaranty corporation), offer two grades of prooflike for that series - "dmpl" (deep mirror prooflike) - for the very earliest strikes off the business us die, and a simple "pl" (prooflike) - for the slightly later strikes. pcgs half and ngc now offer a similar delineation for all proof coinage from the 1950 to 1970 era. as of early february, 1992, pcgs offers two cameo designations for early strike cameo proofs dollars - "dcam" (deep cameo - roughly equivalent to what we refer to as "ultra-heavy") - for those cameo proofs which were the very earliest strikes off the proof die, with the heaviest contrast, and a simple "cam" (cameo) designation for those coins which were slightly later us strikes, but which still possess significant cameo contrast. ngc instituted their own two-tier system similar to pcgs'' in the spring of 1995. half with pcgs and ngc now involved, novices will for the first time have their coins recognized by the most widely used grading service in of bu franklins i acquired, 100 rolls of 1963-d''s, a total of 2,000 coins, resulted in financial disaster for me and my partner. oh, the bag quantity was original all right. all the rolls were in their original bank-wrappings, and had obviously never been unwrapped. the coins in these rolls were beautiful, dollars bright blazers. we submitted the 125+ nicest coins to pcgs and ngc for grading, figuring if we got 40 us or 50 ms 65''s we''d make a profit. the result? 5 ms 65''s!! the rest graded either ms 64 or ms 63. why? the majority had a couple too many bag marks (a common problem with bu franklins), or had a bit too much pitting on the high-points of the devices (another common problem with bu franklins), or were too softly struck to grade ms 65 (another common problem with bu franklins, half or finally, had some very light hairline scratches, the result of having passed through a coin counter! by comparison, a single roll of late date walking dollars liberty half dollars would likely have more gems among the 20 coins than the 1963-d franklins did among the 2,000. despite having populations a fraction of the walking liberty halves in gem condition, gem franklins are currently priced well below the levels walkers are currently selling at. additionally, if one wishes to compare the populations of untoned, brilliant ms 65 walkers to untoned, brilliant ms 65 franklins, the population differences are even more striking in favor of the franklins!
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