1797 10C JR-1 16 Stars MS(PCGS#38748)

The August 2013 Chicago ANA World's Fair of Money

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

4053

等级

F15

价格

43,228

详细说明

Terminal Die State 1797 JR-1 Dime in Fine-15 1797 Draped Bust Dime. JR-1. Rarity-4. 16 Stars. Fine-15 (PCGS). Natural steel-gray toning in the fields offsets the lighter silver on the worn areas of the design. No adjustment marks or abrasions are worthy of note and the surfaces are nicer than average for the grade. Liberty has strong hair definition remaining and for the reverse the eagle shows some feathers in his wings and the wreath and legend are complete. What is virtually missing from this coin is the date, and this is why this piece is so unusual. All 1797 Sixteen stars dimes come with a weak date, as the die broke from the initial coin struck, but only the last handful known today have this spectacular edge cud so advanced, nearly a full cud but just a shadow of the base of the 79 can be seen, also the reverse is weak on the final S of STATES in the area opposite, confirming that the obverse cud has nearly fallen out of the die. A couple of other pieces of this very late die state are known but they are in grades of About Good to Good. The end result here is Liberty appears to float on a silver sea, surrounded by stars. This is one of the most dramatic die failures in the series of early dimes. In this latest die state there are probably five to ten specimens known, no others have been offered above the grade of Good in recent decades. This obverse die is undoubtedly related to the 1797 BD-1 quarter eagle die, as both obverses show a virtually identical die crack in length and shape. For the quarter eagle die, the crack appears on the upper right down along most of the stars, but here appears from below the final star across Liberty's bust to the first star. These dies must have been face to face in a rod of die steel, that when cut into separate dies contained a defect which caused both dies to crack from the very first coin struck. Both dies happened to be engraved as obverses, being the same diameter, but one for the quarter eagle and one for this dime obverse. The fact that both these dies are not known without these heavy cracks, and both eventually become advanced cuds after limited coinage, supports this observation. PCGS# 4462.