1795 $1 Flowing Hair, BB-14 MS(PCGS#39981)

December 2020 U.S. Coins Auction

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

1090

等级

MS65

价格

3,775,206

详细说明

Gem Uncirculated 1795 Flowing Hair Silver Dollar Condition Census for the Issue Finest BB-14 Two Leaves Variety 1795 Flowing Hair Silver Dollar. BB-14, B-4. Rarity-3. Two Leaves. MS-65 (PCGS). CAC. OGH. Simply put, this is an outstanding coin that ranks among the finest 1795 Flowing Hair dollars irrespective of die variety. Its combination of superior striking quality and extraordinary surface preservation immediately evoke thoughts of a coin that was set aside soon after striking, perhaps by an early visitor to the United States Mint. Both sides are fully defined with crisp, uniform denticulation that shows to excellent effect the very high borders for which this particular die pairing is known. Moving toward the centers there are full radial lines in the stars as well as crisp LIBERTY and date on the obverse. Equally fully rendered are the legend UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and the wreath on the reverse. At the centers is found razor sharp delineation between the individual strands in Liberty's hair and virtually all feathers within the eagle's plumage. Even the breast feathers are nearly complete, the detail to the eagle's eye and beak no less impressive. Full satin to softly frosted mint luster blankets surfaces that are as fresh as the day this coin emerged from the dies more than two centuries ago. There are no blemishes of consequence, hardly any even of a trivial nature; two tiny nicks near the lower reverse border below the left (facing) ribbon end serve as useful provenance markers. (These took some time to find, and are easily overlooked under all but the closest scrutiny.) Wisps of beautiful iridescent reddish-gold, champagne-pink and olive-blue toning appear toward the borders and round out the remarkable list of attributes for this amazing Gem Mint State early dollar. Robert Scot was appointed engraver at the United States Mint in November 1793 and was employed in that position until his death in 1823. Scot was responsible for engraving master dies, which he called "original dies," and the central device punches or hubs that were raised from them. He also had a hand in producing the working dies that were used for coining, though some of that work was delegated to assistants like John Smith Gardner. Though modern writers have attributed several designs of this era to Gardner, he likely accomplished the day-to-day grunt work in the engraving department, executing a wide range of working dies, called "coining dies" by Scot, rather than performing the creative work that has been credited to him. Scot's written testimony to Congress, offered early in 1795 to answer questions about the workload of the engraving department, has been cited by authors including Don Taxay and Robert Hilt, though Bill Nyberg was the first to actually publish it (John Reich Journal, August 2012). Scot's testimony reveals that the time to engrave an obverse master die for a 1795 dollar, consisting of the Liberty head design, took "six or eight days" and a reverse master die took "nearly the same time." "After their Hubbs are compleated," Scot wrote, "a head Die for striking money may be finished in two days," assuming that the brittle steel of the die did not crack during the hardening process. The master dies created hubs, which were then used to produce working dies. Reverses required two master dies, with the eagle device on one hub or punch, the wreath on another. Today, 1795 Flowing Hair dollars are neatly divided into two groups based upon which wreath hub was used, one showing two leaves under each wing, the other showing three leaves. Two different eagle hubs were used as well. Numismatic scholars have identified 19 different pairings of working dies for the 1795 Flowing Hair dollar. The BB-14, represented here, is one of the die pairings that corresponds to the Two Leaves Guide Bookvariety. BB-14 numbers among the more frequently encountered for this issue in today's market and is popular among collectors seeking a single example of either the Flowing Hair dollar type or the 1795 Two Leaves Guide Bookvariety. Bowers accounts for 350 to 550 coins extant in all grades and, while the typical survivors grades no finer than VF, the persistent collector should be able to acquire an EF example without too much effort. The 1795 BB-14 is rare in About Uncirculated preservation, however, and exceedingly rare in Mint State. The exceptionally solid strike seen on the Miller specimen could not have happened using the press that the Mint employed for the incompletely struck 1794 dollars. Intended for smaller coins, that press was pushed beyond its limits to coin the large diameter dollars. Its insufficiency resulted in a halt in dollar coinage until the situation could be remedied. Elias Boudinot, director of the Mint, assured Congress on February 9 that "A fourth [press] for dollars and medals, in particular, will be finished in about three months." The first group of dollars struck on the new press was delivered on May 6, 1795, almost exactly three months after his testimony. The press was paid for on February 2, a week before Boudinot testified, when a warrant for $937.19 was made payable to Samuel Howell, Junior and Co. for "sundry castings, wrought iron, etc." Records cited in Frank H. Stewart's History of the First United States Mintindicate that this press weighed "1 ton 11 cwt," or 3,232 pounds. This enormous, durable machine never yielded its position as the largest of the Mint's screw presses, striking all future Flowing Hair and Draped Bust dollars. Though the dollar press of 1795 represented a giant leap forward for the Philadelphia Mint, silver dollars continued to be struck with more attention to their weight than their aesthetics. Production of specimens like this, sharply struck upon a planchet free of significant adjustment marks or other natural flaws, remained inconsistent, and examples of this remarkable technical quality that have survived to the present are extraordinarily rare. Indeed, PCGS has certified only five 1795 Flowing half dollars of all die varieties at or above the MS-65 level: 1 - PCGS MS-66. CAC. BB-18, B-7. Three Leaves.Ex Catherine Bullowa Collection, by purchase, 1965; Catherine Bullowa's (Coinhunter) sale of December 2005, lot 393; D. Brent Pogue; our sale of the D. Brent Pogue Collection, Part II, September 2015, lot 2042; The Type Set Collection (Oliver Jung); Bruce Morelan. 2 - PCGS MS-65+. CAC. BB-18, B-7. Three Leaves. Silver Plug.Ex William Strickland; Charles Winn (husband of Priscilla Strickland, son in-law and cousin of William Strickland), by sale, 1834; Rowland Winn, 1st Baron St. Oswald of Nostell, by descent, 1874; Rowland Winn, 2nd Baron St. Oswald of Nostell, by descent, 1893; Rowland George Winn, 3rd Baron St. Oswald of Nostell, by descent, 1919; Rowland Denys Guy Winn, Major the Lord St. Oswald, M.C., by descent, 1957; Christie, Manson, and Woods' sale of English, Foreign, and Important American Coins, the Property of Major the Lord St. Oswald, M.C., October 1964, lot 141; Lester Merkin's sale of October 1973, lot 451; Dr. Herbert Ketterman to Jimmy Hayes, via sale; Jimmy Hayes Collection; our (Stack's) Greater New York Numismatic Convention Sale of April 1983, lot 1220; RARCOA, by sale, September 1987; D. Brent Pogue; our sale of the D. Brent Pogue Collection, Part II, September 2015, lot 2043; Bob R. Simpson; Heritage's sale of the Bob R. Simpson Collection, Part I, September 2020, lot 10095. 3 - PCGS MS-65. CAC. BB-14, B-4. Two Leaves.Ex Larry H. Miller Collection. The present example, prior provenance unknown. When we reached out to him for help in determining this coin's provenance prior to its inclusion in the Miller cabinet, noted early dollar expert W. David Perkins informed us that in 35 years of researching and tracking these coins he had never seen this example of the 1795 BB-14 variety. We believe that it is a newcomer to the census for the variety and handily outdistances the Parmelee-Carter specimen (PCGS MS-62+) as the finest known 1795 BB-14 dollar. This coin is incorrectly listed on the PCGS Population Reportas an example of the Three Leaves variety, due to the use of the incorrect PCGS coin number on the old style insert. 4 - PCGS MS-65. BB-21, B-1. Two Leaves.Ex Robert Coulton Davis; New York Stamp and Coin Company's (Harlan Page Smith and David Proskey) sale of the Robert Coulton Davis Collection, January 1890, lot 427; Lawrence Stack Type Set; Stack's, via sale, January 2003; D. Brent Pogue; our sale of the D. Brent Pogue Collection, Part II, September 2015, lot 2045. 5 - PCGS MS-65. BB-24, B-13. Two Leaves.Ex William Cutler Atwater; William C. Atwater, Jr. and John J. Atwater, by descent, 1940; B. Max Mehl's sale of the William Cutler Atwater Collection, June 1946, lot 187; Louis G. Stirling; Frank Mumford Stirling, by gift or descent, before 1984; Heritage's ANA Mid-Winter Auction of February 1986, lot 1328; Anthony Terranova; our (Bowers and Merena's) Four Landmark Collections sale, March 1989, lot 1942; Superior Galleries' May 27, 28, 1991 Auction, lot 948; Lawrence Stack Type Set; Stack's, via sale, January 2003; D. Brent Pogue; our sale of the D. Brent Pogue Collection, Part II, September 2015, lot 2046. Amazingly, D. Brent Pogue once owned four of the five Gem Mint State 1795 Flowing Hair dollars certified by PCGS, and at the same time. The Larry H. Miller specimen is the only exception. Its offering in this sale represents a significant bidding opportunity for a numismatic connoisseur to acquire a truly outstanding example of the United States Mint's first silver dollar design type. A landmark rarity and premium quality coin worthy of the strongest bids. Stack's Bowers Galleries would like to thank W. David Perkins for providing provenance information on some of the finest known 1795 Flowing Hair dollars of the BB-14 variety. Provenance: From the Larry H. Miller Collection. PCGS Population (all die marriages of the issue): 4; with single MS-66 finer. The old style PCGS insert uses coin #6852, which is now reserved for the Three Leaves variety of the 1795 Flowing Hair silver dollar. PCGS# 6853. NGC ID: 24WZ. Click here for certification details from PCGS. Click here to see Coins in Motion. [“Coins]