1878-S 50C MS(PCGS#6360)

The August 2013 Chicago ANA World's Fair of Money

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

4245

等级

MS63

价格

1,008,648

详细说明

Exceptional 1878-S Half Dollar Rarity A Key to the Series The Atwater-Hawn-Noblet-Osburn-Jewell Specimen 1878-S Liberty Seated Half Dollar. WB-101, Die Pair WB-1, the only known dies. Rarity-5. MS-63 (PCGS). CAC. In the "name" sales we have held over the years, the appearance of an 1878-S half dollar has always been an event of special pride. This is one of the key issues of the Liberty Seated half dollar series and is a rarity at any grade level. The present coin with its incredible pedigree stands high among the survivors. It is an impressive coin displaying delicate russet-gold toning with tinges of blue around the rims. Considered a Proof by B. Max Mehl when sold in the Atwater Collection, although he also noted it could be an early die striking, which is most likely the case. The fields are reflective and contrast with the more satiny devices. There are a couple of tiny handling marks in the right obverse field and left of the eagle, and a few faint hairlines are also noted for accuracy, although these features do little more than define the Select Mint State grade. All stars and devices are crisply struck up. Certainly one of the finer examples to survive of this prohibitively rare issue, and likely within the top 10 known for the date, if not the top six. Curiously, there are only about 50 known survivors.. Their condition breaks down as follows, 16 are Fair to VG, another 16 are Fine to AU, and the balance are AU-58 to Mint State -- this from a mintage of just 12,000 pieces for the year. In 1878 the silver mine owners finally accomplished a great coup. Senators Bland, Allison, Kasson and Kelley managed to push through Congress -- over President Hayes' veto -- a bill that was passed into law on February 28, 1878, the same day Mint Director Henry Linderman approved of George T. Morgan's silver dollar design. Under the Bland-Alison Act, the mints had to purchase between $2 and $4 million worth of new silver bullion each monthto coin into silver dollars. Not just anysilver bullion, it had to be domestically produced and new -- not recycled. Thus foreign sources could not take advantage of these sweetheart deals and back room agreements. These new coins soon were called "buzzard dollars" or "Bland dollars" and mostly sat in Treasury vaults. The silver dollar denomination was chosen as each coin required the largest amount of silver to produce. It is easier to coin one silver dollar than say, 10 silver dimes. Literally millions of silver dollars piled up by 1893 when President Grover Cleveland was finally able to have the Bland-Allison Act repealed. Many of these dollars gathered dust until the 1960s when they were finally released into circulation. Mintages of silver dollars eased off in 1893-1898 as the flood of silver coming into the mints was finally shut off. By 1898 the remaining stockpile of silver awaiting disposition was ordered to be coined into more Morgan silver dollars, and this supply lasted until 1904. At that time coinage finally halted for this denomination until 1921 when the Treasury Department found it necessary to strike more silver dollars from bullion on hand to act as backing for Silver Certificates. The dollar coin, despite its popularity with collectors today, never saw widespread circulation as a denomination; these simply were not commonly used in commerce except in certain of the Rocky Mountain states. One need go no further than a Guide Bookto notice how the branch mints stopped issuing half dollars by the end of 1878 until the Barber coinage started up in 1892. Furthermore, the number of half dollars coined in any given year of this period was dismal indeed. For the 1878-S half dollar, a mere 12,000 were struck, a token issue compared to earlier San Francisco figures. The attrition rates were unusually high as well, which pared this number down to just 50 coins today. Diagnostics of the present coin include a thin raised lintmark on Liberty's chest below her neck, an unfinished area below her chin to shoulder, and the raised die lump at the top left of the first open stripe on the reverse shield. To identify this particular coin there is a tiny nick above the sixth obverse star, a minute horizontal nick on Liberty's neck, on the reverse a tiny nick is found on the right edge near the middle of the uppermost leaf. PCGS# 6360. Provenance: From the Richard Jewell Collection. Earlier from B. Max Mehl's sale of the William Cutler Atwater Collection, June 1946; our (Stack's) sale of the Reed Hawn Collection, August 1973, lot 289; our (Bowers and Merena's) sale of the Douglas L. Noblet Collection, January 1999, lot 186; and our sale of the Dick Osburn Collection, August 2011, lot 7135. PCGS Population: just 5; 6 finer through MS-66.