1803 1C Small Date, Sm Frac, RD MS(PCGS#1484)

August 2020 U.S. Coins Auction

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

1045

等级

MS64RD

价格

416,823

详细说明

Extraordinary Full Red 1803 S-254 Cent Tied for CC#1 in the Bland Census Elder: "Certainly has more red on than any 1803 cent we have ever seen." 1803 Draped Bust Cent. S-254. Rarity-1. Small Date, Small Fraction. MS-64 RD (PCGS). Type:Draped Bust. Design: Obv: A draped bust of Liberty faces right with the word LIBERTY above and the date 1803 below. Liberty's hair is tied with a ribbon, the ends of which are plainly evident at the back of the head. Rev: A wreath surrounds the denomination ONE CENT, the base of the wreath bound by a ribbon tied into a bow. The legend UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is around the border and another expression of the denomination 1/100 is below. Weight Standard: 10.89 grams. Diameter: 29 mm. Die Variety: Sheldon-254, Breen-13. Obv: Small, Wide Date with the upper right corner of the digit 3 touching the drapery. The digits 183 are distant from each other, the 03 more closely spaced. In the word LIBERTY, the letters RT are higher than the others. S-254 represents the only use of this obverse die. Rev: Small Fraction, the bar long and placed too far to the right, not "covering" the digit 1 in the denominator. This reverse die also appears in the S-255 pairing. Many die marriages of this date -- including S-254 -- correspond to the Small Date, Small Fraction Guide Bookvariety of the 1803 Draped Bust cent. Die State: Noyes D/B, Breen IV. Obv: Light crack from the border below the digit 3 in the date extends into the bust, nearly reaching the tiny center dot below the ear. A second, heavy die crack -- essentially a retained cud -- has developed from the border below the digit 3, arcing through the end of the bust to the border at 4:30. Faint clash marks from denticles are evident through the letters LIBER in LIBERTY. Rev: Faintly cracked through the top of the letters ME in AMERICA to the border above the adjacent R. Light to moderate clash marks are evident through the denominator of the fraction and within the wreath below the letters NIT in UNITED. Edge: Plain. Mintage: The mintage of 3,131,691 coins that the Guide Bookprovides for the 1803 Draped Bust cent corresponds to the Mint's deliveries for this denomination during calendar year 1803 -- 2,471,353 coins -- plus all but 96,500 of the 756,838 cents (660,338) delivered during calendar year 1804. While many 1803-dated cents were certainly struck during calendar year 1804 (and possibly as late as 1806), the mintage of this issue remains an estimate since we do not know exactly how many 1804-dated cents were struck, or even when all of those coins were produced (they may also have been delivered during calendar year 1805, possibly even 1806). Estimated Surviving Population for the Die Variety: Rarity-1: More than 1,500 coins in all grades. Strike: This is an exceptionally well produced early date large cent, the impression on both sides is ideally centered with full denticulation around the borders. We note just a touch of softness to a few of the leaves in the wreath below the letters ITED in UNITED, otherwise all design elements are sharply to fully rendered. Surfaces: Both sides of this simply beautiful 1803 cent retain virtually complete, fully original mint color in vivid rose-orange. Wisps of pale olive and violet iridescence are evident only at indirect light angles. A few swirls of steel gray on the obverse are associated with light, ancient carbon deposits that appear to be the only impediments to a full Gem Mint State rating from PCGS. Faint remnants of an old fingerprint are evident in the lower left obverse field behind the hair curls, tiny reverse spot above the letter F in OF. Wispy handling marks are mostly confined to the obverse, and they are faint, widely scattered and easily overlooked. An area of shallow roughness in the right obverse field before Liberty's face and neck represents either original planchet texture that did not strike out, or a minor strikethrough involving die grease -- in either case it is completely original to the coin, as produced. A tiny, natural planchet flaw at the obverse border above the letter B in LIBERTY is also as made. The frosty texture and swirling cartwheel effect add to the appeal of this lovely example. Commentary: One of the most famous 1803 Draped Bust cents, this magnificent S-254 is tied for CC#1 in the Bland census with an EAC grade of MS-66, CC#1 in the 2015 Noyes census with a grade of MS67(MS60) Choice. This coin's earliest known auction appearance was as lot 2566 in Thomas L. Elder's sale of January 1937, where it was described as: "1803. Obv. Newcomb 8-d. with heavy die break in front of bust along border. Rev. K. Newcomb page 76 for reference. Bright red, Uncirculated. Maybe best one known, certainly has more red on than any 1803 cent we have ever seen. As such Excessively rare." John Adams, in his annotated bibliography of major 20th century auction catalogs, gives this Elder catalog one of his highest grades, an A-. This coin was noted among the brief list of highlights from the sale upon which Adams chose to remark, mentioning this coin as "Red MS 1803 1¢," the only large cent listed. How many Mint State cents that were sold as red in 1937 remain just as red today? The coin realized $110 in that sale, which was a then-incredible sum -- one could have bought both the "Proof" 1796 quarter and the "Unc." 1796 quarter from John Zug's ad the next month in The Numismatistand still had five dollars leftover to buy a few commemorative half dollars! Fast forwarding to the late 20th century, this coin appeared as lot 2740 in our (Bowers and Ruddy's) 1981 ANA Sale, where Q. David Bowers wrote: "1803 S-254 (Blunt 1, small date; small fraction, bar too far right). MS-65, Uncirculated, full flaming mint redwith one or two small spots and stains, and traces of an old fingerprint in left obverse field. Tiny planchet flaw on rim above B in LIBERTY. With the break at the point of the bust in its last stages, the die having collapsed inside the break. Tied with Essex Institute, Lot 156 as the finest known, although there are several more mint red specimens of this variety around. Again, possibly from the same source as the Essex Institute coins and the above 1801: the word 'Salem' is penciled on the original envelope. This and the above 1801 will elicit fierce bidding competition from the copper specialists." The Essex Institute specimen to which Bowers refers is tied with this coin as CC#1 for the S-254 dies in the Bland census, in which both are graded EAC MS-66. The 1801 in question is an S-216 that shares a provenance with the ESM S-254 coin up to our 1981 offering. Both coins were in the aforementioned January 1937 Elder sale, and the 1801 S-216 was reported by Bland to have been "found in an old desk at the Essex Institute while it was being restored during the 1930s." Apparently the coins had identical envelopes before 1981, with the notation "Salem" penciled on the outside, as related by Bowers, though the envelope for this coin has since been lost and is not included here. Twins of each of the 1981 ANA coins, in other words another red 1801 S-216 and another red 1803 S-254, were included in the Essex Institute sale of 1975, and both are tied for finest known with their "twins," which provides further support for the theory that all four coins were found together at the Essex Institute during the 1930s. One of the two finest survivors from the S-254 dies, this coin also ranks high in the Condition Census for the 1803 Draped Bust cent issue as a whole. Del Bland, among all the 1803 cents in his detailed Condition Census listings, graded only five individual coins as MS-65 or higher, and the only two MS-66s are the ESM S-254 offered here and its "twin," the Essex Institute specimen. Third party certification data agrees with Bland's assessment of the rarity of full red cents of this date. The current NGC Censusdoes not list a single specimen in the RD category, and only one coin as MS-66 RB. Every other Mint State 1803 cent currently listed at NGC is in the BN category. While PCGS has graded a few more pieces as RB, this is the one and only RD 1803 cent graded in the 34-year history of that firm. Indeed, just three Draped Bust cents of all dates and varieties have been called RD by PCGS: one is the MS-64 RD S-216 cited above and the other is the incredible MS-66 RD Beckwith-Naftzger-Streiner 1807/6 S-273 cent that realized $470,000 in our August 2015 offering of the Cardinal Collection. This coin's remarkable history also includes a role in perhaps the most incredible large cent trade of all time: the Great Ho-Ho-Kus Pool Table Swap of 1986. We wrote about the trade in our (American Numismatic Rarities') Haig Koshkarian sale, when describing the Mint State S-1 AMERI. that was also a part of the trade: "On the day noted [December 11, 1986], Naftzger and Halpern finished one of the most remarkable trades in this history of large cents, accomplished on Halpern's pool table in his home in New Jersey. On that day, Ted Naftzger traded away the [Koshkarian] Sheldon-1 in addition to the second finest Sheldon-2 (ex French-Sheldon), the fourth finest Sheldon-11c (ex Newcomb-Auction '81), the fourth finest Sheldon-14 (ex C. Douglas Smith-Denis Loring-John Roper) and other coins to Halpern. Naftzger received the finest known Sheldon-1, and the fourth finest known Sheldon-2 (ex NN50-Floyd Starr) as part of his take." On that same day, the ESM 1803 S-254 was traded from Halpern to Naftzger. Few Draped Bust cents of any date can match this extraordinary S-254 in terms of quality, eye appeal, provenance or history. It is truly a wonder coin, a standout highlight in the ESM Collection, and destined for inclusion in another world class early copper cabinet. Provenance: From the ESM Collection. Earlier ex Thomas L. Elder's Street and Other Important Collections sale, January 1937, lot 2566; Arthur A. Wells; our (Bowers and Ruddy's) William R. Sieck Collection sale, July-August 1981 ANA Sale, lot 2740; Anthony Terranova; Herman Halpern, December 11, 1986; R.E. "Ted" Naftzger, Jr.; 1989 EAC Sale, April 1989, lot 143; Anthony Terranova; private collector; our (American Numismatic Rarities') Robert Michael Prescott Collection sale, January 2006, lot 28. The plate coin for Die State D/B in the 2015 edition of the Noyes large cent reference. PCGS Population (all die marriages of the Small Date, Small Fraction variety): 1 in all grades in the RD category. PCGS# 1484. NGC ID: 224G. Click here for certification details from PCGS.