CoinWeek article on damaged source coins (for use in creating counterfeit dies) is this “mystery”
1872-S half dollar. Many of our documented source and counterfeit examples were discovered in one of the large internet sales venues, and watching sellers associated with them in the past has led to new discoveries. Many of these sellers are actually interconnected, buying and selling among each other, and the list continues to grow. The subject example for this article came from reviewing the offerings of one of these sellers; the “coin” was suspicious by association as a result and warranted additional research and investigation in my opinion, but was beyond my experience and focus of
United States 1864-S Seated Liberty Quarter
San Francisco and along the West Coast were handling a rarity in the mid-1860s.
As their counterparts in the east were vanishing from circulation during the Civil War, silver coins in San Francisco were circulating much more extensively – including the
1864-S Seated Liberty quarter, which turned out to be a major rarity. Consumers might have known that the freshly-struck quarters were prized in the east for their silver content but might not have suspected that, decades later, the coins would be sought-after by collectors interested in their scarcity, not their precious metal.
The new branch mint began striking silver quarters and half dollars in 1855