Premium Choice VF 1797 Small Eagle Half Dollar
1797 Draped Bust Half Dollar. Small Eagle. O-101, T-1. Rarity-5+. 15 Stars. VF-30 (PCGS). CAC. OGH Rattler.
Amato 316. A superior mid-grade survivor of this legendary Small Eagle type. The surfaces are overall glossy and smooth, with traces of satiny mint luster remaining in the protected areas. Deep navy-blue and steel-gray in the fields contrast the lighter mauve shades across the high points. The central elements are nicely defined despite the typical softness at the right borders. There are few blemishes of note, although a pair of faint planchet streaks (as made) on the obverse through stars 14 and 15 into Liberty's bust and a tiny nick in the reverse field below the eagle's left wing helped us establish this coin's provenance. It is traceable back nearly 40 years to our (Stack's) sale of the Lester Bernstein Collection in April-May 1986. This lovely piece exemplifies the scarce earlier state of the O-101 dies, estimated to be about twice as rare as the later one by Tompkins (2015). The obverse remains essentially prime, with inspection of the rim near star 2 revealing no sign of fracture. The reverse displays a crack from the rim down to the letter O in OF that is carried over from this die's previous employment in striking 1796-dated halves, though cracks proprietary to this pairing are sparse. A fracture is just beginning to descend down from the denticle above the first letter T in STATES. This is Tompkins Die Stage 1/1-2. The 1797 half dollar is a profoundly enigmatic issue whose intrigue is only overshadowed by its rarity. Echoing the symbolism portrayed by the flag of the United States, the earliest coins of the United States Mint depicted a star count that tried at best to mirror the number of states belonging to the Union at the time of striking. Fittingly so, the half dollars of 1794 and 1795 display 15 stars on the obverse - a number justified by Kentucky's admission on June 1, 1792. In anticipation of 1796's half dollar mintage, officials prepared a 1796-dated 15-star die for use, though no half dollars were struck in said year. However, by the time mintage resumed in the beginning of 1797, Tennessee had already joined the Union on June 1, 1796, and a 16-stars motif was appropriate. Never to be wasteful, the Mint employed this wrongly dated and wrongly starred obverse, eventually transitioning to a 1796-dated 16-star obverse by some other combination of misguidance. Then, most curiously, a third die was created to finish out the 1797 half dollar production year; properly dated 1797, though ornamented with just 15 stars on the obverse. Several theories and conjectures have emerged to explain how this blundered regression might have occurred, though whether terribly complex or astoundingly simple, the error in star-count for the 1797 Draped Bust half dollar has left numismatic scholars scratching their heads for the past two centuries.
PCGS# 6060. NGC ID: 24EC.
PCGS Population: 9; 22 finer, just five of which are Mint State (MS-66 finest). CAC Stickered Population: 25 in all grades.
From the Srotag Collection. Earlier from our (Stack's) sale of the Lester Bernstein Collection, Part I, April-May 1986, lot 837; Superior's session of Auction '88, July 1988, lot 156.