1898 Barber $0.50 Diameter: 30.0mm Mint: Philadelphia Designer: Charles E. Barber Weight: ? 12.5g Metal: 90% Silver, 10% Copper Edge: Reeded Mintage: 2,956,000 The 1898 Half Dollar is plentiful in most grades and it is an excellent choice for type purposes. MS63 and MS64 examples can be found with ease, and even MS65's are available frequently. MS66 examples are fairly scarce, but there is a nice cluster of MS66+'s that offer excellent quality and colorful eye appeal. The best example is a single PCGS MS67. As expected of a Philadelphia Mint Barber Half Dollar, the 1897-S offers a great strike and top production quality. Mint state examples of this issue are not especially difficult to locate, but true Gems...are considerably more rare than generally believed. By no means is the 1898 a common date like the 1892 or certain other issues after 1907... In 1892 the half dollar was redesigned to the so-called Barber type. Designer Charles E. Barber’s Miss Liberty now faces right, her hair is in a Phrygian cap, and a wreath of laurel encircles her head. The word LIBERTY appears on a small band or ribbon above her forehead. IN GOD WE TRUST is above, six stars are to the left, seven stars are to the right, and the date is below. The reverse is an adaptation of the Great Seal of the United States and features a heraldic eagle grasping an olive branch and arrows and holding in its beak a ribbon inscribed E PLURIBUS UNUM. A galaxy of stars is above. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and HALF DOLLAR surround. The same head of Miss Liberty appears on dimes and quarters of the era. Mintage was continuous at the Philadelphia and San Francisco Mints from 1892 through 1915, with additional pieces supplied from New Orleans through 1909 and from Denver beginning in 1906. Unlike the Barber Quarter series, which has some genuinely tough coins, there are no significant rarities in the Barber Half series, although the 1892-O, 1892-S, 1893-S, 1897-O. 1897-S, 1914 and 1915 will be tougher to locate. The type set collector will encounter no difficulty in acquiring specimens in grades of Good or Very Good. Fine pieces, believe it or not, are scarce. Very Fine coins are very scarce and Extremely Fine coins can be called rare in the context of modern issues. AU coins are rarer yet, Uncirculated pieces are still more rare, and superb Uncirculated pieces are very rare. Proofs exist in proportion to their original mintages, which like the quarters, typically ran in the neighborhood of 500 to 900 pieces per year. One of the reason for the scarcity of high grade circulated pieces, is once the coins entered circulation, they tended to remain there many years, and the few XFs and AUs that remained, were often “enhanced” in the 1960s and 1970s and sold as Uncs.