Stack’s Bowers Rarities Night Sale Features Trio of High-Grade New Orleans Mint Barber Dimes

Stack’s Bowers Galleries’ Aug. 13 Rarities Night sale featured a trio of 1890s high-grade New Orleans Mint Barber dimes struck in sequential years that are lower-mintage issues in the series.

Three high-grade New Orleans Mint Barber dimes from the 1890s, each struck in a year with a lower mintage in the series, were offered in Stack’s Bowers Galleries’ Aug. 13 Rarities Night sale.

An 1894-O Barber dime graded Mint State 66 by Professional Coin Grading Service carried a green Certified Acceptance Corp. sticker and was once in the collection of Louis E. Eliasberg Sr. It was more recently among Legend Rare Coin Auctions’ December 2014 offering of selections from the Bob R. Simpson Collection, where it realized $21,737.50. A decade later the price improved modestly, and it sold for $24,000 Aug. 13. It had been purchased directly from the New Orleans Mint in November 1894 by J.M. Clapp.

Going down a bit in price from its 2014 offering was the 1895-O Barber dime, graded MS-65 by PCGS and also carrying a green CAC sticker. Its provenance, going back more than a century, included a long stint in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. R. Henry Norweb, until Bowers and Merena offered it at its Norweb Collection sale in 1987 where it realized $4,180. When it sold at Heritage’s January 2014 Florida United Numismatists convention as part of the David and Sharron Akers Collection, it realized $34,075, while in its recent Aug. 13 sale it sold for $22,800.

It is from a low mintage of just 440,000 and is considered by many as the rarest issue in the series in Mint State grades. Stack’s Bowers called it, “A boldly struck and visually appealing Gem dressed in delicate powder blue and deeper olive-gold patina,” adding, “Softly frosted luster is full and undisturbed by all but a few trivial marks that are well concealed by the toning.”

Finally, $21,600 took home an 1896-O barber dime graded MS-67 by CAC Grading that was previously offered in Heritage’s October 2014 Gene Gardner Part II auction, then-graded MS-67 by Numismatic Guaranty Co. and carrying a green CAC sticker, where it realized $12,925. Heritage called it virtually pristine, writing, “This delightful Superb Gem is highly lustrous with modest brightness in the fields and lovely shades of cobalt-blue and russet-red patina that are strong near the peripheries and somewhat noticeable in the fields.” Stack’s Bowers noted, “Richly and originally toned, as well, mottled cobalt blue and reddish-rose iridescence appears to drift toward the borders,” and it appreciated nicely from its Gardner presentation, though one can debate whether the new CACG holder boosted its prospects over its former CAC’d NGC slab.