1776 (i.e. 1783) Continental Currency “Dollar.” Newman 3-D, W-8460. CURRENCY, EG FECIT. MS-62 (PCGS).
268.4 grains. 170 degree die rotation. Flashy and beautiful, with bold silvery luster on both sides. Well centered and supremely well struck, with only the surface showing trivial softness. The color and eye appeal are superb on both sides. A curlicue lintmark is noted, as struck, right of the L of CONTINENTAL, but only a single tiny mark above R of ARE at central reverse requires mention. The die state is typical, with an arc crack on the reverse from the Georgia ring to the New Jersey ring. The EG Fecit variety has always been distinctively sought out among the pewter Continental dollars. The additional obverse legend adds an important extra fact - and a potentially solvable mystery - to what is known about these obscure but evocative pieces from the end of the American Revolution. For decades, the initials EG (paired with FECIT, Latin for "made this") were thought to belong to Elisha Gallaudet, a New York / New Jersey plate engraver who accomplished some cuts for colonial currency. Though few plate engravers ever mastered the skills necessary to cut dies, the fact that there was an American engraver with the initials EG was enough to attribute these dies to Gallaudet, grounded in the disproven assumption that Continental dollars were of American manufacture. No other evidence, documentary or circumstantial, ever came to light. In recent years, research by David McCarthy and Erik Goldstein has built a strong documentary case that the Continental dollars were European products, struck as commemoratives at the end of the American Revolution. Dating them to 1783 vs. 1776 in no way diminishes their history; indeed, the surfeit of good documentation helps tell a real story were there was previously only conjecture. The first hard piece of evidence actually related to a specimen of this exact variety: a printed handbill (often called an explication when similar publications accompanied French medals of the era) that accompanied the Sarah Sophia Banks specimen when it was donated to the British Museum. As David McCarthy noted in his August 2022 article in The Numismatist, the handbill advertised "'these American Medals at Six-Pence Each,' followed by a careful description of the Continental dollar, ending with the words, 'the Letters E.G. Fecit, its maker's Name.'" McCarthy, following a discovery by collector Ed Hohertz, built a strong case to identify the diesinker as German engraver Elias Gervais. McCarthy offered stylistic and circumstantial links to Gervais, who was the engraver at the mint in Cologne in the 1770s and used both "E.G," and "E.G. F." as signatures on his dies. McCarthy's article also showed persuasive evidence of German origins; while American collectors and political figures were insistent that this piece was unknown in America during the Revolution, all the earliest documentation connected to these pieces can be traced to Germany in the short era after the Treaty of Paris. While most EG Fecit Continental dollars are high grade (they did not, after all, circulate as money), this one is particularly lovely and boasts an interesting published provenance.
PCGS# 915767.
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From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier ex the Lawrence R. Stack Collection, November 2006. Plated in Robert Vlack's 1965 Early American Coins, p. 76.

Estimate: $60000