ARE YOU looking for a new collecting adventure? If so, I’ve got a suggestion for you: Barber half dollars minted from 1892-1915.
With 73 different date/mintmark combinations, there are enough different coins in the series to challenge you. At the same time, there are no true mintage rarities, and the set is not especially difficult to complete in lower circulated grades. In fact, in G4 only 9 of the 73 should cost more than $100.
The reason for this situation is that almost all the different dates were minted in relatively large quantities for the era. These large, silver coins were workhorses. Unlike the half dollar today, Barber half dollars were freely used in everyday commerce.
The Barber half dollar replaced the Seated Liberty half dollar, which had been minted from 1839 through 1891. That’s 52 years for a design that had undoubtedly grown stale to the people of the day.
The quest for new designs to replace the “ancient” Seated Liberty motif began in 1889, when Edward O. Leech became the new director of the Mint. As such, he decided on a design competition involving ten leading artists. Their task was to prepare new designs for the dime, quarter, and half dollar. The dollar wasn’t included because the Morgan dollar was still relatively new.
The three lowest mintages occurred at the Philadelphia mint
