This is indeed a special coin. The 1794 dollars were struck using only one die pair.
There is a unique pattern 1794 dollar struck with an obverse die with no stars which was in the Bob Simpson collection and is highly corroded. That die was not used to strike the Mint issued business strikes.
The coin in this thread is also a unique pattern struck in copper but this one matches exactly the early die state of the Neil/Carter SP66 graded 1794 dollar that sold for over $10 million. The Neil/Carter Mint plugged 1794 dollar is believed to be the first U.S. silver dollar produced by our nation. The reason why this is thought to be true is because the early die characteristics of that coin were matched to the coin in the first post in this thread. It rightfully belongs in our national coin collection.
The subject coin in this thread is believed to be the first striking of the die pair that produced every single 1794 dollar that the U.S. Mint produced as coinage.
As far as a grade, it should be SP66 or better but there appear to be some areas with slight pitting in the copper planchet so I would say SP64 as I cannot bring myself to say it is gem.
But this does not detract at all from what is likely the first striking from the only known die pair for one of the most important coins in our history. As a bonus, this does not appear to be a coin that the Smithsonian botched in handling and appears to be preserved in pristine condition.
P.S. I don't think I was trying to trick anyone (although some will disagree). I just thought it would be fun to apply our grading skills onto a cool, historically significant coin.
Thanks to all who participated in this grading challenge.
IN NECESSARIIS UNITAS - IN DUBIIS LIBERTAS - IN OMNIBUS CARITAS THE MAN IN THE ARENA, Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne Paris on April 23, 1910: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." My coin website:https://fairfaxcoins.com
I sort of guessed it correctly! As did @Pacificoin. I sort of cheated and had found the no stars copper pattern on Heritage.
I'm curious about the silver-looking dot in the wing on the reverse, dead center of the coin. I can't remember what the story is on these, some sort of centering mark for engraving the dies. I notice that there is a smaller pair of them on the obverse just below the ear, also near dead center. I see the same on some high grade examples on Heritage. Did they screw up with one on the obverse and had to add a second one?
This is one of those coins where assigning a grade has no relation to value. It's the only one.
The strike is incredible on this pattern/coin, way more hair detail than in the MS66+ 1794 business/specimen strike dollar that sold for over $10 million. This pattern was last sold in April of 1954 at auction with Stack's in the Davis-Graves sale as Lot # 1264 it was purchased by Norman & Harvey G. Stack of Stack's Rare Coin Galleries for $1,400.00 at their auction and then they donated it to the National Smithsonian Collection for all to enjoy...
It is now off the market and belongs to all of Americans. A neat piece. Originally from the famous Parmelee Collection, then the Dr. Hall Collection and next the prestigious Virgil Brand Collection, quite the provenance. on this pattern dollar and rightly (in my opinion) the first dollar of our country.
"Buy the Book Before You Buy the Coin" - Aaron R. Feldman - "And read it" - Me 2013! ANA Life Member #3288 in good standing since 1981, ANS, Early American Coppers Member (EAC), Colonial Coin Collectors Club member (C4), Conder Token Collector Club member (CTCC), Civil War Token Society (CWTS) member, Liberty Seated Collectors Club (LSCC) & Numismatic Bibliomania Society member (NBS), USMex, Member in good standing, 2¢ variety collector.
It is interesting to note that the Mint truly did not have the equipment in 1794 to mint silver cartwheels. This is the earliest and finest striking of the 1794 dollar but you can readily see that the stars in the left side of the coin were not as fully struck as the stars in the right side of the obverse. The same thing can be seen on the reverse where UNITED STATES on the left periphery of the coin is weakly struck compared to AMERICA on the right periphery.
IN NECESSARIIS UNITAS - IN DUBIIS LIBERTAS - IN OMNIBUS CARITAS THE MAN IN THE ARENA, Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne Paris on April 23, 1910: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." My coin website:https://fairfaxcoins.com
kbbpll posted a link to a coin in the Smithsonian. I just wanted to confirm that this is the coin. if thats the case I'm patting myself on the back for stating if it was in the Smithsonian
That's the one. Unfortunately it's not on display so you can't go see it when you go to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
@kbbpll - The raised center dot in early coinage was due to the engraver placing an incuse divot at the center of the die so that they could use a compass to scratch out a shallow circular line to guide the position of the design elements of the coin as they were hand engraved or punched in the case of stars. Primarily it was the legends, inscriptions, stars inside the rims of coins and centering the main devices, mainly Liberty and the eagle that needed a compass to provide a positional guide.
This was an artifact of when dies were hand engraved. Later when master dies, hubs and transfer devices automated the production of working dies from a master die, the raised dot disappeared from coins.
IN NECESSARIIS UNITAS - IN DUBIIS LIBERTAS - IN OMNIBUS CARITAS THE MAN IN THE ARENA, Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne Paris on April 23, 1910: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." My coin website:https://fairfaxcoins.com
I don't know if you have enlarged the pictures, but a close up shows the beautiful care that the engraver took to engrave exquisite detail into Liberty's hair.
IN NECESSARIIS UNITAS - IN DUBIIS LIBERTAS - IN OMNIBUS CARITAS THE MAN IN THE ARENA, Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne Paris on April 23, 1910: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." My coin website:https://fairfaxcoins.com
Thanks, that's vaguely what I remembered, about using guides to align the elements when engraving. Here's the double dots on the obverse, which I find interesting because it seems like they did it twice, like it was a little off the first time.
That's the hair engraving exactly as I mentioned. I was first thrown off by the hue/color and patina, as soon as I looked at the enlarged photo I knew I had to check my Pattern records, as there was no way this was a 1794 business strike for circulation.
Compare that hair close up NS posted to this one of the $10 million coin in mint state...
The pattern is so much better stuck up.Still the business strike is no slouch either.
"Buy the Book Before You Buy the Coin" - Aaron R. Feldman - "And read it" - Me 2013! ANA Life Member #3288 in good standing since 1981, ANS, Early American Coppers Member (EAC), Colonial Coin Collectors Club member (C4), Conder Token Collector Club member (CTCC), Civil War Token Society (CWTS) member, Liberty Seated Collectors Club (LSCC) & Numismatic Bibliomania Society member (NBS), USMex, Member in good standing, 2¢ variety collector.
I have been experimenting with AI tools available these days and I created an AI-generated avatar that I named Haley to narrate my coin videos going forward. Let me know how you like my AI-generated coin videos. I thought I would start with this coin.
-6CR2vAsbiM
IN NECESSARIIS UNITAS - IN DUBIIS LIBERTAS - IN OMNIBUS CARITAS THE MAN IN THE ARENA, Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne Paris on April 23, 1910: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." My coin website:https://fairfaxcoins.com
Just for information purposes, I used about six free online AI tools but had to pay $10 for an application called MidJourney to create the avatar image. I figured out how to do the image generation for free using other tools.
The learning how to generate the AI image, the video animation, the rendering and upload to youtube took about 2.5 hours. The first video took about an hour to complete as I was learning as I was creating it. The second took about 30 minutes and most of that was waiting for the images, and animation to render and the upload time to youtube.
I think in the future, these avatar bots will be extremely useful for doing tedious tasks like waiting for and connecting to customer service. Once I get the automations done, I think these videos will be very effortless to make.
IN NECESSARIIS UNITAS - IN DUBIIS LIBERTAS - IN OMNIBUS CARITAS THE MAN IN THE ARENA, Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne Paris on April 23, 1910: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." My coin website:https://fairfaxcoins.com
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Posted 11/30/2022 12:46 pm
