What Is Your Grade For This 1795 Flowing Hair Dollar?

A little weakness in strike. I agree with 35 obverse and 40 reverse. Bill tends to grade conservatively So I think he will call it 35. To me it looks strong enough for a 40 grade

NGC graded this 1795 Flowing Hair Dollar EF-40. This coin also has a grading history.

I bought this coin in the mid 1970s. At that time I paid a slightly higher VF price because it had original surfaces. A lot of these coins have been dipped or cleaned to a white silver color which is does not go with the VF grade. (i.e. You don't get the color of a Mint State coin on a VF coin.)

My grade for this coin was VF-25 when I owned it. I graded the obverse VF-20 and the reverse VF-30. An expert dealer I showed it to, called the reverse EF-40.

One thing about Flowing Hair dollars is that they were not all made the same. Some varieties come more sharply struck with greater detail than others. This is a Bolender 5, which is identifiable from the thin bar (die defect) that is back of Ms. Liberty's heard. This is one of the varieties that has less detail. It is also the most common Flowing Hair Dollar variety from my observations.

I upgraded this type a few years ago, and decided to sell this coin. I got a bit more resistance from dealers than I thought I would get. Some said it was over graded, which was a valid point, but many didn't like the adjustment marks.

In the early days of the mint the planchets had to fall within certain weight standards. If the planchet (coin blank) was too heavy the excess medal was filed off, usually by female employees who caught the filings in leather aprons. At the end of the day these aprons were taken apart and the silver was recovered. These female employees got the lowest wages paid at the mint, 66 cents a day.

If the planchets were too light they were thrown into the melting pot, or in some instances a silver plug was driven into the piece to make up the weight. Coins with the silver plug visible now sell for a premium.

Since adjustment marks were done at the mint, they don't lower the technical grade, but they can lower the collector value if they are ugly. Some adjustment marks are so small that they can hardly be noticed. Obviously those marks present no problem.

At any rate some dealers didn't want my coin because of the adjustment marks, but I made a good buck on it just the same because I had owned it for so long. I never viewed the adjustment as much of problem because they seemed to flow with the design in my opinion. Oh well.

So there is my story.

$1,100, and that was on the high side.

You have to remember though that $20,000 a year was a pretty decent salary.