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Rick Tomaska Discusses the World's Finest 1950 Proof Franklin Half Dollar
May 22, 2025
You'd be forgiven if you have never seen a Proof 69 Cameo 1950 Franklin Half Dollar because, up until now, no one has ever seen one. Coin Dealer Rick Tomaska joins Charles Morgan to discuss an incredible coin recently unearthed in a 1950 Proof Set. This improbable find escaped decades of active searching and wielded a coin that could be the most valuable Franklin Half Dollar Proof ever. 1950 Franklin Half Dollar Proofs are notorious for shallow mirrors and hairlines. Few have any degree of Cameo Frost. This example has deep mirrors, no hairlines, and a thick Cameo. A true unicorn! In this video, coin dealer and author Rick Tomaska joins Charles to discuss the coin and what makes it so special. We also discuss the process by which cameos were imparted on coins from this era and the variance among coins that have earned this designation from the TPGs.
View Video Transcript
0:00
well hi Rick Uh thanks for joining me Yeah I caught word that you got a very important uh modern proof coin uh 50
0:09
Franklin half-dollar So let's talk about that coin in particular and and why uh
0:14
1950 Franklin's are the u I guess it's fair to call them the key date of the
0:20
proof series especially if you're hunting cameos Well it it's a really you
0:25
know um I I think in the um um the notes I sent you you know I've I've uh if you
0:32
look in the NGC set registry I have a client who has the finest known proof
0:38
seated half set you know from 1858 to 1891 Spectacular coins I have a client
0:45
who owns the finest known proof barber half set from 92 to 1915 Um I had a
0:52
client who owned a finest new proof Morgan set etc So I've had a lot of ex you know proof proof coins are my first
0:58
love You know the half dollars and the dollars they're my first love And um the
1:03
one thing um when I really got involved in Franklin's in the early 1980s the
1:10
proofs and the more I studied them uh what I've concluded over the decades
1:16
uh is that o the overall if you had to pick one year where the overall quality of the proof half dollar was the worst
1:24
for that for for for any year uh in general it would be the 1950 I mean the
1:32
um and there's several reasons why Um the fortunate thing is that the mintage
1:38
was 51,386 coins So the mintage was higher than previously So they had more dice to
1:46
prepare But um there were a lot of reasons why the quality of these coins
1:52
in general were so poor One of course they hadn't made proof coins since 1942
1:59
Um and if you look at 1942s uh the proof walkers you'll see a lot
2:06
more of them despite the a much lowerage a lot more of them in very high grade
2:12
than the 1950 Franklin And um um the 1950s Franklin I
2:19
I think what happened uh Charles is that you had a lot of new people
2:25
uh in the department that were tasked with the job of making proof coins who
2:30
had no experience making proof coins You know I mean the the fells who were working there in 42 were gone You know
2:37
you had World War II and everything And so you had all these new people and so
2:44
um the making of a proof die was maybe more of a a learning process for a lot
2:50
of these people Uh on top of that you had the fact that there were a lot more
2:56
proofs that they end up striking than previously Um you know here we were five
3:03
years out of World War II you had um a lot of exmilitary men who were getting
3:10
established in the working world in the business world and you saw a real boom in collecting taking place in the
3:17
1950s And so they had over 50,000 orders for proof sets but you know uh they they
3:24
may have only had so many dyes Um and if you look at enough 1950 proof
3:32
Franklin you'll see a lot of them A very high percentage of them are are
3:37
struck from very worn dyes Some of them you look at and they they it's hard to
3:42
tell if they're proof coins or not because the mirrors are so shallow you know and a lot of times
3:49
these worn dyes you'll see a lot of pitting on the high point of the bell
3:54
and on the high point of of Liberty's uh uh cheek um uh as an indicator of coins
4:02
being struck from these warn D So you had a lot of these kinds of the majority of Franklin's in 1950 were struck from
4:09
dyes that were not you know in pristine beautiful deeply mirrored condition You
4:15
know nowadays you see proof coins and everyone's a beautiful black and white cameo Back then I I think they they
4:23
ended up overusing the using these dyes to fill these orders And um so you had a
4:30
lot of coins that were just struck from very poor dyes And then there were some nice cameo
4:37
dyes but then uh again um uh 1950 this
4:42
is the first year they came out They came in the box sets And the 1950
4:48
Franklin's they had you know a lot of times they had glue glue stains from the glue that they used in those envelopes
4:55
hairline Um but but they always had hairlines All the deeply really deeply
5:00
mirrored 1950 Franklin's I've ever handled had hairlines You know if you
5:05
just had a few and a graded proof 66 well that was exceptional A proof 66
5:11
cameo Franklin is exceptional And then if you get one in proof 67 that was extraordinary And then
5:17
there's actually been a few 68s out there But uh a 6-9 is basically
5:25
um a perfect coin Now when he told me he had a 69 cameo there was only been three
5:31
or four graded and 68 cameo So you you probably Yeah So you probably
5:37
expect at this point it's like an upgrade or something right i uh I didn't know what to expect What I actually
5:43
expected was that it would be struck from um because because I've
5:49
seen I think I've seen all four of them Um and two of them were struck off of a
5:56
very weak cameo die By a weak cameo die is
6:01
not one that I had pictured in my book I call it a weak cameo die because the a even though they're early strikes the
6:08
averse is very very lightly frosted I mean it has just enough frost for a
6:14
cameo designation You if they would have put uh uh a symbol beh after it they
6:22
would call it a cameo minus You know it was just very lightly frosted Two of the
6:27
68 cameos were off that die Now that die the coins in general are high quality
6:33
They have nice mirrors They usually have relatively few hairline so they usually grade pretty high But in terms of
6:40
contrast they're very very weak cameos So I kind of was expecting one of
6:45
those And so when I got I got the coin and the first thing I noticed is
6:51
that it was struck It was an early strike off of a top die You know I had I
6:56
put my coin glasses on you know which these are my reading glasses They're 150s So my co coin glasses are 325s
7:04
right of course So u I put the 325s on and look for the
7:10
hairlines you know and I couldn't find any and the mirrors were just jet black
7:16
and the co I I it was just blew my mind And it reminded me it reminded me u
7:24
because I started in deep mirror proof like Morgan dollars and you're familiar with that
7:29
1886 MS67 deep mirror proof like Sure Yeah
7:35
Uh it's a one-of-a-kind 1886 It's just it's like a million-dollar coin but it's
7:41
so superior to any other 1886 It's like it just stands alone for that date And
7:49
uh this kind of reminded me of that coin for a 1950 because it's just unlike any
7:55
1950 I've seen It's an early strike off a top die and where all of these other
8:01
coins they all had hairlines This coin was absolutely flawless And so um you know now that 86
8:09
is a million-dollar coin I you know this is a Franklin Um one thing I can say is
8:14
certainly among the Franklin I've handled I know in auction there was a 1958 P Mstate Franklin in 67 plus FBL
8:25
sold several years back for $129,000 Um among Mstate and proof Franklin's
8:32
this was probably the most you know uh amazing Franklin I've handled in terms
8:38
of what it is for the date and grade Uh the fact that it's this kind of quality you know um you know you I look at the
8:45
coin and the coin is a 69 you know it's not it's not a coin that you know
8:51
um you know kind of like you say you know crack was a crackout or something
8:56
like that It's just absolutely spectacular Um and and PCGS hasn't
9:03
graded any in 68 cameo so you know it wasn't in a PCGS holder Um you know the
9:09
guy said he got it out of a proof set and it's just blows my mind that he got this out of a proof set So um uh you
9:19
know it's it's it's a great story I you know I'd like to say that he got it out of some somebody's old time collection
9:27
who put it away back in 1950 or something like that but he got it out of
9:32
a proof set I I just think boy some people you know I've never been that fortunate You know I've been I've looked
9:38
at millions of proof sets over the years and I found some later dates in Ultra Cameo but to get an early date like this
9:45
in this condition is um is extraordinary and it's it's it's really a thrill So um
9:53
so the last I think I think the last super high-grade uh 50 Franklin proof
9:59
that I I saw at a lot viewing was probably uh the Jim O'Neal coin that
10:05
Heritage sold in 2018 It was a if I if I remember it was like a proof 67 plus
10:10
cameo with CAC and and and I've I I've been kind of I I I wish I wish the
10:17
grading services would be more uh strict with these uh designations as you kind
10:22
of lay them out in your in your book which pretty much set the table for them to start accepting them because like
10:29
often times I find that these these these twe some tweener grades or some tweener frost levels get get the
10:37
designation and even if they're weak in spots I mean is is this is this 69 like
10:42
solid cameo throughout in your opinion or is it typical for the date it's
10:48
actually off in my book It's actually off D number one pictured in the book
10:54
and um it has a really even creamy white frost over the averse and the reverse
11:02
The reverse is actually uh ultra cameo The obverse is just a really nice strong
11:08
cameo So it's a very even heavy frost on both sides And that's what makes it so spectacular is just you know just to get
11:14
a 50 and proof nine would be a six figure coin Um you know uh you know I've
11:21
I've never I've never handled for a long time there was one in the NGC pops that
11:26
was a nine star And I I'd never I had never seen that coin Uh I can only guess
11:33
it maybe had it had some nice color toning around or something They gave it the star designation but that's been in
11:40
the NGC pop tables for I don't know at least 10 years And um that's the only
11:47
you know I wish I had seen that coin but to get this coin you know I it's again it's a dream come true because I never
11:54
thought I'd be handling a 1950 in proof nine And here's this nine cameo It's a
11:59
really strong cameo and it's a solid 69 Um you know it's fully deserving of
12:05
the grade So it's it's just as a specialist in these coins and a
12:10
collector at heart it's u it's just a lot of fun
12:15
What What do you think the impact of a coin like this coming i mean first of all is the coin coming to market or is
12:21
it going into your personal holdings no we're we're going to um um we we we got
12:27
some clients uh we're gonna call um about it and um you know because we have
12:35
some really good clients and we want we want to give them first shot on it and we we're going to go from there because
12:41
you know the last thing I want to do is is to put it in an auction And I I always try to you get something really
12:48
special to clients that have been loyal You want to you know um give them first
12:53
first shot on something like this And it's it's a coin that's you know irreplaceable You're not going to see another one first year of issue and
13:00
everything It's you know it's kind of a a holy grail for for
13:06
for you know proof half dollars from from the from the 20th century I know
13:13
I've handled some really cool proof half dollars I love to tell
13:19
stories about I remember once I had I had a 1936 in Walker and proof 67
13:26
star that I sold and I I sure wish I had could get that coin back again because it was a really early mirror Actually
13:35
had some frost to it you know kind of 36s you just don't see you know Um and I
13:42
once had a 1915 uh arbor from from the child's
13:47
collection that was just the most amazing 1915 I think it was graded 68
13:54
star cameo Um so um you know those are some of the highlights of some of the
14:00
proof half dollars I've handled you know from the 20th century I would imagine like a coin like this coming out and
14:07
getting into a uh an important collection uh might might wiggle another
14:14
half dollar loose from that collection perhaps Um how do how do coins like this
14:19
coming to the market like re recalibrate our opinion on what's out there and and
14:24
and what's possible well that that's the thing You because because you know you know that's the fun thing about
14:31
collecting You just never never ever know I mean you know for example
14:38
um you know when I was working on my first book I was trying to deliberate
14:43
the rarity of a 1959 in ultra cameo condition Now here
14:49
they struck over a million 1959 proof
14:55
Franklins And but I was saying to myself you know I've been studying these things for years and years and I had only seen
15:02
a handful that I could call ultra heavy that were really heavy cameo averse and reverse So I made an estimate that I
15:10
said there was probably somewhere between you know like 90 and 180 coins something like that in ultra heavy in
15:18
all grades And you and you're doing this more or less based on your die studies Yeah And cameos can be struck for Yeah
15:26
And based on in 1959 the dyes seem to wear very quickly So if a coin struck an
15:31
ultra cameo there weren't very many strikes off that die that would strike ultra cameos But here we are um you know
15:40
over over 30 years later and PCGS and NGC combined in all grades I think have
15:47
graded something like 50 or 60 coins you know and so it's you know I but you know
15:54
I I tried to be really conservative in those estimates In other words I made the estimates what I felt would be on
16:00
the high side So that I didn't want a collector buying a coin based on an estimate and then finding out that my
16:07
estimate was was was uh way too high and that there's uh
16:14
uh or that my estimate was way too low and that there's actually a lot more of the coins that my than my estimate In
16:20
other words if it turned out that there were 959s in Ultra Cameo when my
16:25
estimate was 150 you know that would that would be great for the seller but it'd be terrible for the collector So I
16:33
made all my estimates on the high side figuring well
16:38
they'll either reach that estimate or it'll be below that estimate And uh
16:45
that's for the most part turned out to be the case Uh um and uh and the one
16:50
thing this is doing is it's really stimulating me to um um do a a brand new
16:58
you know revision updated version of the Cameo book where I would be able to have
17:05
pictures of all the top coins already graded throughout the book
17:10
which I wasn't able to do in the first book Um plus I would be able to have color pictures throughout the book you
17:17
know with modern technology Um it makes a book like this so much easier and so
17:24
much more possible than you know 35 years ago Um uh 35 years ago it was a
17:30
nightmare Charles I mean um um if you can imagine it was those were the analog
17:36
days I remember I had a professional photographer and he had a special tent
17:43
set up to photograph the coins and there would be reflective um kind of tin foil
17:51
on the inside of the tent and the coin would sit on the stand in the middle and the light would be
17:59
underneath the stand and the light would just reflect off all that uh
18:06
a reflective surface and um and then he would shoot shoot the coin from a little
18:12
hole in the tent And every coin was set up exactly the same
18:18
way pennies nickels dimes quarters halves And you know we do a shooting and
18:25
uh you know some of the coins wouldn't come out right So I'd have him reshoot
18:31
it So he would reshoot it and exact exa again in exactly the same you know setup
18:41
and the next coin would come out where whereas the first set would come back
18:47
from the developer with a little bit of a red tint The second batch would come
18:52
out with a little bit of a blue tint or the coins would be slightly larger
18:58
you know I would have to put these in a book And I was I was kind of I was it
19:03
was getting very frustrating because I wanted these to be I really wanted to capture the cameo as as accurately as
19:11
possible And that was the key And we did that for the most part But I I finally had to settle I don't know if I ever
19:17
told you this story but I I said to myself "Look Rick you're not going to get to the point where it's 99% accurate
19:24
You you'll be doing this for 10 years if you try it." So I had what I called my 97%
19:30
rule which is if it got to that 97% I had to be satisfied with it Because if you look at the first book for example
19:37
in the quarter section you'll see some of the quarters uh have a bit a bit of a red tint to
19:43
them and others will have a blue tint And it's all because of how they were developed in a different batch And
19:50
nowadays though with computers and and and and digital photography you know we
19:56
don't have those issues So it's going to be really great And now and and now we
20:02
have you know about almost 35 years where the grading services have been
20:08
able to grade these coins and and now you know we're seeing a lot more coins
20:15
graded being graded in Cameo and Deep Cameo from this era than we did say 10
20:20
15 years ago I mean the fact is most of these sets have been picked
20:27
at this point and it's pretty rare when you find something really nice coming out in Cameo or Deep Cameo So this this
20:35
1950 coming out now some 35 years later is um a real shocker you know So um but
20:44
it's uh I call it the What did I What did I
20:49
call it i called it a 1950 Franklin and proof 69 cameo
20:56
was a coin that I didn't believe existed And that's the bottom line I you know like there's never been a
21:03
1951 or a 52 graded in 69 There's been a couple 53s And I figured well there
21:10
might I could see there being a 52 someday because um you know like NGC is
21:16
graded 17 or 18 and proof 69 I could see a a 69 cameo one day popping up Uh 51
21:25
you know maybe not but a 50 I didn't think there was any chance of a of a 50
21:31
uh popping up uh in 6ix9ine cameo Um in in fact even even the proof 68s
21:40
uh there have been about 40 1950s graded in proof 68 but again most of those most
21:48
of those are are are later strikes off warn dies They're not deeply mirrored coins Um but those are the kind that
21:56
typically survive uh the decades um without the hairline issue
22:03
that you have with the really deeply mirrored roof franklins It's those really deeply mirrored proofs that you
22:09
know tend to pick up hairlines a lot easier than those later strikes that don't have those delicate mirrors So um
22:18
so this is this is really unusual It's uh it's uh it's it's it's it's kind of a
22:24
freak freak of nature you know It's shouldn't exist but it does So I
22:30
want to ask you a question Let's let's talk about this coin um technical level
22:35
U like like uh let's let's just imagine for a second that I am a very
22:42
sophisticated collector and I am in the market for a coin like this and I want to build an a worldclass set Yeah
22:51
So I have choices Well perhaps maybe I have a choice to make Maybe I'm maybe I
22:57
have a NGC67 plus U cam or a 67D cam from PCGS
23:05
which up to this point I've been really really I really like Is there an argument that you would make that would
23:11
say that that collector wanting with that goal of having the best set should
23:17
consider a 69 Cammy over a 67 UAM well um the highest grade DAM PCGS has
23:25
ever graded was a was a 66 DAP Um and they've graded only a couple in proof
23:32
proof 8 Um but when you now there there's a couple ways to look at it um for
23:39
registry set purposes If you're building a registry set and you want the top
23:46
ranked registry set um I believe a 67 or 67 plus or a 67 UAM will give you
23:55
a a few more registry points than a 69 Cameo So you might prefer that over the
24:04
69 Cameo Then there are other collectors who though u are just bothered by flaws
24:12
They want their pro proof coins to be perfect You know I've got some customers like that and man if if it's got a
24:20
couple hairlines on on it or a couple or a little spot here or there it just
24:26
bothers the heck out of them you know And and that's you know collecting is all you know all different strokes you
24:32
know everybody has their own taste this this kind of coin kind of
24:39
appeals you know if you're building a top
24:45
set and just for aesthetic purposes and I and I wanted to decide between a 67 U
24:53
cam or the 69 cam I think I might pick the 69 cam just
25:00
because I would it's like the perfect 50 You know I've never seen a 50 that I
25:09
look at and would say "Is I flawless perfect?" You know uh I'm looking at it
25:15
with my with my you know uh with my
25:21
uh my coin glasses on and I'm studying it under a strong light and the mirrors
25:26
are black and and you can't see any flaws or spots or glue stains on the
25:32
averse or reverse and I just ask myself how the heck did this coin ever survive
25:37
like this it's you know knowing that all the other 50s I've
25:43
seen you know after you've seen thousands of the things and all all the Deep Mirrors all have hair They all have
25:51
hairlines and uh the nicest ones I've ever handled you know had a couple
25:56
hairlines two three hairlines but you know they were always there And then to find this coin that is like wow there
26:04
there's there's nothing on it It's absolutely perfect It's and it's a
26:10
beautiful cameo and the mirrors are just so so nice Um you know it um it's kind of a jump
26:19
ball you know and I would just leave it up to the collector but there's a lot to
26:25
be said for picking either one A 67 UAM Um there's probably going to you
26:31
know there there's a few of those Although and there's only one 6ix9ine cameo Now I haven't tried to upgrade
26:39
this coin to a star or something like that That's that's something I you know had thought about doing Right now it's
26:46
just in the holder that I bought it in but certainly I could see it getting an
26:52
upgrade to something like a Star Cameo because it it is so close to being an ultra cameo And that might you know that
26:59
that would give it some additional registry points So for registry collectors that would be that would that
27:04
would be important to them Yeah Well at the very least I'm sure it's going to get an Everest sticker
27:10
Oh yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah This is Yeah This is a coin
27:16
Uh yeah I'm working on this second book and it certainly would be one of the plate coins in the book you know I mean
27:23
um you know it's just um um so extraordinary for for the year Um
27:32
um I mean I mean the proof making has a really interesting history And you know one of
27:38
the things I say about the the the 1950 proof Franklin and here we are here here
27:44
was the US leading the industrial world in 1950
27:49
Um and we were striking these coins that had had pitted surfaces shallow mirrors
27:57
glue glue stains And here we're and if you look at some of the proof coins
28:03
struck uh you know 50 75 years earlier you could find some of the most
28:09
beautiful deep mirror cameo ultra cameo proof coins struck back when the
28:14
industrial revolution was in its infancy you know and here we were in this in
28:20
this modern era and and then it was like it was like the 1700s you know
28:27
Yeah I guess I guess well I mean the the Synx design was it wasn't necessarily the easiest one to strike up you know I
28:35
mean the the getting full strikes was kind of a challenge Yeah that was that was a big I think
28:41
that's a big part of the problem with the 1950 Franklin versus the proof
28:47
walker Um even with the mintstate coins I mean proof walkers the later proof
28:53
walkers for example are much easier to find in high-grade mintstate than the
28:59
Franklin's And I think it has to do with the wide portrait surface area of
29:05
Franklin Franklin's portrait and the Liberty Bell that wide flat Liberty Bell
29:12
And then you also have a large area of field in back and in front of Franklin's
29:19
head that you don't really have with the walkers where um you have the walking
29:25
liberty portrait It's a much more three-dimensional multi-dimensional portrait versus the
29:32
Franklin and Liberty Bell which is kind of almost two-dimensional you know not not as not as uh um not as detailed not
29:41
as uh you know artfully crafted as as that walking liberty half There's more
29:47
certainly more hideand seek I think in the uh Franklin and certainly more more spaces for for hairlines and scratches
29:54
to appear Yeah Yeah Well that's it That's it That's the whole thing You
30:00
when you have a large area that's that's uh can be easily exposed like on the
30:06
Franklin you know it's a uh it's a target for you know especially when they came in those early cellophane envelopes
30:13
just celloph just rattling around in the cellophane envelope is is going to hairline the coin if it ever araides
30:20
with the field of the coin Yeah a very very similar circumstance with I think
30:25
the uh the Ike dollars when they start to appear in the 70s although I think the Franklin has certainly much more
30:32
classic design Yeah the Ike dollars had the benefit of uh being in the plastic
30:38
holders So that was nice And uh however um obviously they
30:45
they had problems with the packing materials because um you know as as like
30:50
I like to call the the brown Iikes uh body bags because whatever material was
30:57
in those holders just had the worst chemical reactions with the surface of
31:02
the coin And you see these iikes silver iikes with this very very heavy opaque
31:09
haze Haze swampy toning Yeah And I just have no idea what they were using They
31:15
had similar problems with with the cladikes as well up up until 1978 All of
31:21
a sudden 77 and 78 was kind of the magical time when all
31:28
of a sudden there was a huge improvement in quality Um you know they were using
31:34
they had been experimenting with the sand blasting of these dyes and uh the
31:41
chrome plating of these dyes to create uh more of these beautiful cameo coins
31:47
And it's like 7778 was kind of when they were pretty much perfecting it because
31:53
when you look at the population numbers and and this is a breakdown I did virtually every Ike struck in 1978 is an
32:02
ultra cameo They're all really nice and they're going to grade at least proof 68
32:07
Most grade proof 69 a few grade proof 70 Same thing with the Kennedy halves you
32:13
know although you'll get more 70s with the with the Kennedy halves So that's I call that the kind of the beginning of
32:19
the modern era 19778 when you were pretty much guaranteed of getting a beautiful
32:26
beautiful cameo uh in in every denomination that would be a very very high quality coin Yeah I mean you're
32:33
right I mean that that's pretty much why I think this 1950 to this probably I mean probably
32:40
the early '7s maybe maybe around the bsentennial I mean that's going to be a
32:45
very interesting area for collectors in the next 30 or 50 years you know because
32:50
of that I don't I wouldn't want to call them accidental cameos but certainly the mint didn't set out to make them and
32:57
then and then they changed their technology so everything is a cameo Well well certainly I I I I had the
33:06
privilege of speaking with someone uh was Ed Fulwer
33:12
um he's retired who used to work at at the mint and he used to talk about when
33:17
they made cameo dyes and he said they called it pickling the dyes So they
33:23
intentionally made the cameos but they they didn't know how to do it on a consistent basis because you know they
33:29
they dipped them in this bath that was 5% nitric acid 95% alcohol and that acid
33:36
bath would etch the entire frost the entire surface of the dye and then they
33:41
put the dye in a buffing wheel and of course the recess portion uh would wouldn't receive that buffing It would
33:48
retain that acid cameo effect So the first strikes would have
33:54
uh the fields would have the the mirrored buffed mirrored finish Uh the
34:00
portrait would have the acid etch cameo effect but the acid etch cameo effect was extremely delicate I mean they were
34:07
coming down with about 200 tons of pressure for the half dollars and everyone was being struck at least twice
34:13
and so each successive coin you know that acid frost would would wear ever so
34:20
slightly So every coin would have you know maybe a hint less frost than the coin before Now in some years they were
34:28
able to strike more cameos before the die were set in than others Um probably
34:34
the best well-known year is is the 1956 For whatever reason
34:40
um in the half dollars there are a lot of ultra cameo 1956 halves But then as
34:47
you go into the decade of of the 50s the 57s they're much rarer than the 56s The
34:55
58s are much rarer than the 57s Then you get to the 59s and they're the rarest of
35:01
all And then when you get to 1960 all of a sudden you see more cameos
35:10
Now that also coincides with the fact that 1960 was the year that they
35:15
reworked the dyes uh restored a lot of the detail that had been lost on the
35:21
master die over that decade And um that probably had a lot to do with why all of
35:28
a sudden you start seeing more ultra cameos again in 1960 because they had
35:33
these these brand new dyes with this restored detail So maybe if they were
35:39
dipping the dyes in the acid bath they felt they could dip it for a longer time and still maintain that retain that
35:46
detail that was on on the on the working dye You know that's just a theory of mine because there's really no you know
35:53
we did some research in the Library of Congress to try and find out but the mint records for this kind of stuff is
36:00
or or it's really hard to come by any kind of mint records there Nobody I
36:06
couldn't I could never find a diary that anybody kept about this stuff It was always just for word of mouth from from
36:13
uh the people I spoke with All right So so Rick what do you what do you play what do you uh estimate the uh the value
36:19
of the 50 and 69 cameo at i mean it it has to be a 150 to 200,000 Yeah I I I
36:27
would say uh you know uh 150 175 Yeah Uh I
36:33
mean yeah I could see the coin selling for more than that but you know I I I think that's a really really reasonable
36:40
price because if because I think to myself what what would I be willing to pay for just a regular proof 69 that was
36:48
a deep mirror proof 69 and I would say probably about $100,000 So if I'm willing to pay that
36:54
much for a really legitimate just regular proof 69 1950 well here you got
36:59
a Cameo 69 you know So I I think that's a really kind of fair price Yeah Well
37:06
well good luck with it If you if you do end up selling it uh please let us know And uh we we appreciate you taking time
37:13
to talk to us about it It's exciting Thank you Charles It's been a pleasure as always All right Cool Thank you very much Pleasure Take care