10366

1908-S $5 MS68 PCGS. This date is usually found i

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / US Coins Start Price:120,000.00 USD Estimated At:1.00 - 1,000,000.00 USD
1908-S $5 MS68 PCGS. This date is usually found i
<B>1908-S<$5> MS68 PCGS.</B></I> This date is usually found in lower grades, but when they are nice, they are <I>really</B></I> nice. This is just such a coin, almost certainly the single finest 1908-S Indian Half Eagle in existence. Although Walter Breen mentioned that Virgil Brand once had a small group of Mint State examples (Brand had small groups of just about everything). Perhaps this amazing example traces its history back to that group, which David Akers said "contained a number of gems as well as several superb pieces." In <I>A Handbook of 20th-Century United States Gold Coins,</B></I> Akers also noted that a few exceptional or nearly perfect examples exist today.<BR> In general terms, 1908-S Half Eagles were quite sharply struck with strong mintmarks. This is especially significant for the present example has an "S" mintmark with exactly the same characteristics as found on the popular 1909-S V.D.B. cent. The most visible characteristic is a small lump inside the upper left curve of the letter. Mintmark punches were used over several years, as long as they were still serviceable.<BR> This incredible specimen is fully struck and highly lustrous with frosty reddish-gold surfaces. Some lighter pinkish gold color is visible on both sides. According to Akers: "Most specimens have very good to excellent luster and the color is typically reddish gold or coppery." The connoisseur of gold coinage may never find a nicer example of the date or the type. We have spent considerable time searching for even the slightest little tick or mark for pedigree purposes, almost to no avail. The only marker we can find that might even remotely show up in older photographs of this coin is a tiny field nick below the space between UN in UNITED and a second at 8 o'clock on the reverse border. Even with present-day photographic technology, these may not be visible.