That’s quite a cherrypick. I’ve been aware of the variety ever since it’s appearance in the old Spadone books on “oddities” and varieties from the early ’60s (general awareness of the variety was ensured by it’s first appearance in the “Greysheet” in 1976.) I used to occasionally look at 1916 Buffs back to the early ’60s but had never seen an actual example. I’ve been intensively looking for it for 25+ years. It’s one of only two of the worthwhile doubled dies in the series I’ve never been able to cherry-the other being the 1915 1-O-IV.
There was an AU inadvertently cherried on ebay a few years back in a group of 60 high grade early date Buffs proving that, for the observant collector, even this very obvious and well known variety can still be cherried. I’ve even heard of one individual who has cherried over 25 (!!) of them over the years by paying attention when few others were.
A great story and an even better pick. I would never imagine that one of these with the date visible could still be floating around undiscovered. A few years back, I cherried a dateless one out of a bag of no dates that I purchased for 12 or 15 cents apiece and was thrilled with the find. I still buy bags of dateless Buffs in hopes that lightning will strike twice. There used to be a guy who sold restored dateless 16 DDOs in PCI red holders on eBay around the time I found mine. (Ridiculous prices IMHO, but hey, they’re worth whatever someone will pay for them. I asked where he got so many. He said he paid somebody to search dateless bags, and averaged one every 80,000 coins. BTW Coinquest, I bet I can guess who was the guy that found the 25.
Don’t know who it was who cherried all those ’16 DDO. Just heard about it. Who do you think it might be?????
Thought it would be Tom Arch. He always seemed to have them in different grades in the Numismatic News classified ads.
Not Tom. I believe he, like me, has never cherried one of these. The AU from ebay I mentioned was a REAL cherrypick-AU 58 at least, and maybe an Unc. I believe the buyer paid just over $300 for all 60 high grade, early date Buffs. I can’t recall who it was but they sent me a message and image of the coin. Maybe he will post here.
That’s an interesting approach to searching dateless Buffs. Back in the early days (early ’60s thru about 1977) I used to only occasionally look at the 1916. The photo in Spadone was heavily re-touched and didn’t show the true nature of the variety so I didn’t realize just how dramatic it actually was. The first reference I have found for it was a letter from a subscriber to a 1962 issue of “Numismatic Scrapbook” magazine.
Amazing. Even without the doubled die,$300 sounds like a good price for that quantity of hi-grade early Buffs.
I looked right at ’em but didn’t look close enough. Had I seen it I certainly would have bid around ten grand or so on ’em.