1834 $5 Capped Bust, Crosslet 4 MS (PCGS#8161)
December 2020 U.S. Coins Auction
- 拍卖行
- Stack's Bowers
- 批号
- 1125
- 等级
- MS65
- 价格
- 1,297,727
- 详细说明
- Glorious Gem Uncirculated 1834 Capped Head Left Half Eagle
BD-2 Crosslet 4 Variety
One of Only Two MS-65s Certified for the Issue
1834 Capped Head Left Half Eagle. BD-2. Rarity-5. Crosslet 4. MS-65 (NGC).
This is a incredibly beautiful Gem that really should be seen to be fully appreciated. Both sides have nearly pristine fields and equally meticulous design elements that display the richest, fullest golden-yellow luster. The strike is well executed with most features sharply to fully defined. Expertly preserved and fully deserving of the Gem MS-65 grade, advanced type collectors and early gold enthusiasts are sure to compete vigorously to secure this phenomenal condition rarity from the final year of this design type. BD Die State c/b.
As a series, the Capped Head Left half eagles struck from 1813 to 1834 are among the most elusive in all of U.S. numismatics. Most examples are from the first year, 1813, having been set aside by the contemporary public due to the novelty of the design. Most other dates and varieties are rare, if not non-collectable, since rising gold prices resulted in the wholesale exportation and destruction through melting of pre-1834 U.S. gold coins during the early decades of the 19th century. Indeed, by 1834 the spoils of American mines had been regularly exported for years, usually after being assayed and coined in Philadelphia at the expense of the American people. The complaints of bankers, newspapermen and politicians about the lack of reliable gold coinage had become a chorus. Paper money was essentially unregulated, costing merchants dearly, as most banknotes were sold at steep discounts outside of the sphere of the issuing institution. "Silver is too heavy to be transported from place to place without inconvenience," Secretary of the Treasury Roger B. Taney wrote in 1834, and even the millions of half dollars produced annually were no substitute for large denomination gold coins. A group of New York bankers, led by former Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, wrote to their senators to complain that "the gold coins of the United States...have become mere articles of merchandise, and are no longer to be considered as forming any portion of the metallic currency." Once coined, half eagles like this one were never spent as five dollars in gold, merely sold at their bullion value of $5.33. In time, they were almost always used in overseas payments, as gold remained the most convenient way to conduct international trade.
The half eagles delivered to the treasurer of the Mint on June 30, 1834, were the last gold coins issued to the original standards defined by the Mint Act of 1792. After August 1, 1834, a depositor who brought $500 face value of these coins to the Mint would receive $533 worth of freshly minted gold coins. Most 1834 Capped Head Left half eagles were thus converted to new coins, ones that actually saw use in commerce. While 50,141 half eagles of this type were coined in 1834, the combined population estimates in the Bass-Dannreuther text (2006) place the number of survivors in all grades today at fewer than 100 pieces. The BD-2 variety offered here accounts for 45 to 55 of those coins. The only other Crosslet 4 die marriage of the issue, BD-4, is unique and wears the crown of the "King of the Fat Head Fives" (as described in the Bass-Dannreuther reference). The other two die marriages correspond to the Plain 4 Guide Bookvariety and include the scarce, but obtainable BD-1 (30 to 40 known), and the non-collectable BD-3 (three to five known).
The supreme challenge that the Capped Head Left half eagle series represents for gold type collectors is perhaps best described by John W. Dannreuther when writing about the 1834 BD-2 example in the Harry W. Bass, Jr. Core Collection:
"The single example in the core collection is the only example Bass obtained, although this is the other available variety of this date and one of the most commonly seen ones for this type. There are probably 45 to more than 50 different specimens of this variety; this is still a scare and popular coin, but the type is rare, so this is one of its available varieties."
On the other hand, few examples of this historic punctuation mark in the history of United States gold coins have survived in such fine condition. Mint State coins as a group are notable condition rarities for, while this issue did not circulate in the modern sense of the term, most received enough handling to qualify as About Uncirculated by today's grading standards. The lovely 1834 BD-2 Capped Head Left half eagle in our Pogue IV sale of May 2016 numbers among the finest known for the die pairing and, in PCGS MS-63+, is tied for highest graded at that service for the Crosslet 4 Guide Bookvariety. The Larry H. Miller specimen is even finer, in fact thefinest certified Crosslet 4 half eagle of the Capped Head Left design type, and undoubtedly the finest known. Its only rival for CC#1 for the issue as whole is the 1834 Plain 4 example in MS-65 listed in the NGC Census that appeared as lot 7544 in Heritage's August 2011 Chicago Signature Auction.
Coins that combine the amazing rarity and outstanding eye appeal that define this Gem early half eagle usually come along only once in a long while, if not once in a lifetime. We anticipate fierce competition when this lot opens for auction.
Provenance: From the Larry H. Miller Collection. Earlier ex our (Stack's) Americana Sale of January 2005, lot 3361; our (Stack's) 70th Anniversary Sale, October 2005, lot 1237.
NGC Census (all die marriages of the issue): just 2 in MS-65, one example each of the Plain 4 and Crosslet 4 varieties; 0 finer. PCGS has not certified a single example of this issue finer than MS-64.
PCGS# 8161. NGC ID: 25RP.
Click here for certification details from NGC.
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