Is the Half Dollar the “Coin of the People”?

What's the Renaissance to You?

Boston Tea Party

Dennis: In the American South, a “Yankee” is a Northerner who comes down to visit—and a “Damn Yankee” is one who doesn’t go back home. I’ve been the latter for a long time. I grew up in Central New York (that’s the Syracuse area, for anyone who thinks Buffalo is right next to the Bronx), and I moved to Atlanta about twenty years ago.

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Listen to Audio Version Image: The ill-conceived “Liberty Barking” silver dollar, Judd-1544-1/2. (Actually a mockup of Dennis’s beagle Hyacinth, by retired Whitman art director Bob Cashatt.) Dennis: A coin collector asked me about the name of the 1916–1947 half dollar: Is it “Liberty Walking” or “Walking Liberty”? Growing up as a coin collector, I.

Listen to Audio Version Steve: A marvelous thing about writing about coins is that you can immerse yourself in a specific area, figure out why a collector could be into it, and then share it with readers. I’ve never really been too jazzed about half dimes: just too small for my taste. But when Coin World’s Managing Editor William T. Gibbs suggested the.

Listen to Audio Version Dennis: Recently I was sorting through a hoard of coins I bought about twenty years ago and I found some counterfeit Liberty Seated pieces. One of the fakes was an 1858-S half dollar. If it were one of the 476,000 authentic halves minted in San Francisco that year, it would have been worth about $500 to $600. Ron Guth in.

Steve: I just picked up Whitman’s newly published Cherrypickers’ Guide to Rare Die Varieties, Volume II, and it’s wild to think that it’s been 33 years since J.T. Stanton and Bill Fivaz published the first Cherrypicker’s Guide. Now, before you correct me, Dennis, the version from 1990 on my desk has the apostrophe this way in the title, while later.