When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Item Specifics
- Year: 1894
- Mint Location: New Orleans
- Mint Mark: O
- Denomination: 50C
- Composition: 90% Silver, 10% Copper
- Fineness: 0.900
- Total Silver Content: 0.3617 troy oz
- Coin Weight: 12.50 g
- Diameter: 30.6 mm
- Type: Barber Half Dollar (Liberty Head)
- Circulated/Uncirculated: Circulated
- Grade: Ungraded
- Certification: Uncertified
- Strike Type: Business
- KM Number: KM-116
- Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
DESCRIPTION
1894-O Barber Half Dollar — New Orleans Mint — Our Grade: Very Fine Plus — 90% Silver
An original, honestly circulated 1894-O Barber half dollar from the New Orleans Mint, offered raw and graded in-house by Curiosity Coins at Very Fine Plus. A solid mid-grade example of a date that is far easier to find in Good than in problem-free VF.
- Date/Mint:1894-O, New Orleans silver, 10% copper
- Weight:12.50 grams —Diameter:30.6 mm —Edge:Reeded
- Actual silver weight:0.3617 troy ounces
- Designer:Charles E. Barber
- Mintmark:O, below the eagle\'s tail feathers on the reverse
Condition and grade.Our grade estimate for this coin is Very Fine Plus. This is an in-house opinion from examination in hand — the coin is raw and has not been submitted to PCGS, NGC, or any other third-party service. LIBERTY reads complete and sharp across the headband, which is the standard benchmark collectors look to first on a Barber. The laurel wreath retains separated leaves with visible veining, and the hair above the ear and around the ribbon knot is still well defined rather than blended. The reverse is if anything the better side: shield stripes remain visible, the eagle\'s neck and leg feathers show good separation, E PLURIBUS UNUM is complete and easily read in the ribbon, and the arrows and olive branch are cleanly delineated. Surfaces are an even, natural medium gray with light warm toning at the obverse periphery — original skin, not cleaned, not dipped, not polished. No rim damage, no significant contact marks, no scratches worth noting. Please review the photos, which are of the actual coin you will receive.
1894 in context.The spring of 1894 brought Coxey\'s Army to Washington — the first mass protest march on the U.S. Capitol, several hundred unemployed men walking from Ohio to demand a federal jobs program. That summer the Pullman Strike shut down rail traffic across two-thirds of the country until President Cleveland sent federal troops to break it, and in the political aftermath Congress made Labor Day a national holiday. The Wilson-Gorman Tariff of the same year carried a peacetime federal income tax that the Supreme Court would strike down the following year. This half dollar was struck at New Orleans while the nation was still working its way out of the Panic of 1893, and it circulated through all of it.
The Barber half dollar series.Charles E. Barber, Chief Engraver of the U.S. Mint, designed the dime, quarter, and half dollar that replaced the long-running Seated Liberty coinage in 1892. His reverse for the half dollar adapted the heraldic eagle of the Great Seal, shield on breast, olive branch in one talon and arrows in the other, thirteen stars above. The series ran from 1892 through 1915 and was struck at Philadelphia, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Denver. Barber halves were workhorse coins that saw heavy use, and the design\'s shallow relief wore quickly — well-detailed survivors like this one are meaningfully scarcer than raw mintage figures suggest. New Orleans struck its last Barber halves in 1909 before the facility closed for good.
Silver content.This coin contains 0.3617 troy ounces of pure silver (12.50 grams at .900 fine). At current silver levels near $67 per ounce, intrinsic melt value alone is approximately $24. As a scarcer-date New Orleans Barber in collectible VF grade, this piece trades well above its metal value, but the silver floor is real and it will always be there.
Curiosity Coins — Medway, Massachusetts | Est. 1999 | ANA • PCGS • NGC • Heritage sales Member / Buying & selling US and world coins, silver, gold, currency, and collectibles since 1999. Many sales start at $5 — combined shipping always available. Questions welcome.
