DESERT MOON NEWSLETTER, ISSUE 24, August 2, 2026
- desertmoonnm
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
'20 And 2 Dozen'
Hi Folks,
Well this is a super rapid turn around of a new Newsletter after the Cool Coin Showcase of last week highlighting some very cool Half Dimes. But after the summer holidays with travelling, hiking, airbnbing, I am rarin' to go and want to get as many Newps up before the World's Fair of Money hosted by the ANA in about 3 weeks. I will also have a preview Newsletter for the WFOM in a couple weeks so please stay tuned. We are now in the thick of the summer Monsoon season in the West and from what I can tell, pretty much everywhere in the US. For us, every storm is a gift as we live in the desert southwest and we need water like there is no tomorrow. (Side topic, well there is no tomorrow, we are depleting the aquifers here so quickly that it is projected they will be gone in a couple decades, yet very little is being done about it). Last evening we had some violent storms coming in from the north. When these storms come through, their fronts pack big winds that can be very violent. One storm last nite had strong wind flow directly from the north as it came in. Our gas grill in our outdoor kitchen faces directly north. When the storm came in, those winds were so intense that it ripped the strongly secured fabric cover off of the grill and lifted the heavy stainless steel grill cover completely to the open position. It literally was pushed up from the closed position and lifted back all of the way to open. At which then the deluge immersed the whole interior of the grill in rain. As soon as it was over, I got outside and found where the fabric cover flew off to and retrieved it, closed the metal grill cover and cranked up all 5 burners to dry out the interior. Hey I like a good grill cleaning, but prefer a more controlled process (LOL). Interestingly, this morning I checked inside all of the drawers of the outdoor kitchen for water. None of them had any so their seals with the surrounding steel cabinet structures are good. The only place I found water was the drip pan beneath the grill. That resulted in a good cleaning for the first time in about a year so all good. So these storms can bring in some energy but we are always happy to get some rain for sure.
Okay let's get back to coins. So why is the subtitle above '20 and 2 Dozen'? The 2 Dozen is for how many Newsletters I have managed to crank out since starting Desert Moon in April of 2024. Suffice to say things are going well and all of you have made this a success and thank you very much. The 20 is for Newps. I have managed to get 20 Newps posted for this Newsletter, about 1/3 of what I still have to do but that is going to be it prior to WFOM. Included in this group of Newps just posted are alot of Bust Halves. I realized early this week that all of the Capped Bust Halves I have offered on the Desert Moon website are sold. I still have 26 to post, and in the 20 Newps I managed to get 2/3 of these as cool Bust Halves. This is an area I wanted to expand my knowledge in so I have been stocking up on a diverse set in terms of grades - G to MS65, all dates, interesting die marriages, all cool with great eye appeal. With 450 die marriages of Capped Bust Halves, many having multiple die states, and a few dozen Draped Bust Half die marriages, these two series are wonderfully complex and also reveal the early history of producing them at the US Mint. Sure I did collect a few over the years but I never really delved into them in detail. Opening up Desert Moon provided the opportunity to learn much more about these cool coins. But with this new direction of learning, comes larger time sinks. I can't just pop them up after imaging and put a price on them. In these series, every single coin is unique and every single coin is going to have a unique price. Factors invovled are of course the quality of each half, die marriage rarity, particular characteristics of a given die marriage that have associated terms like Bearded Goddess, 50c/UNI, Pincers 8's, Bar Dot, die progressions, die cuds, etc., all mount up to each half being unique. Sometimes pedigree comes into play. Sometimes guides like 'Auction and Mail Bid Prices Realized for Bust Half Dollars 1794-1839' by Stephen Herrman can come into play by providing auction records of all of the die marriages. The PCGS and CAC retail guides provide an overview of pricing but for the better examples, are mostly that, just an overview. But taking all of these factors into account, history, quality, pricing evidence, takes time for each one I offer here so I am a little slow. That should pick up with time as I gain more experience. Some of the dealers that are well versed in Bust Halves can crank out a description and pricing lickety split. This comes with their decades of experience. So we will see.
Nevertheless here are 20 Newps for your perusal. As always, you can click on the images below and it will take you to the listing. As always, thank you for your interest and have Happy Numismatic Adventures.
Best, DM
