1853/'2' $20 MS(PCGS#8909)
1853/'2' $20 MS (PCGS#8909)
Summer 2025 Global Showcase Auction U.S. Coins
- 拍卖行
- Stack's Bowers
- 批号
- 3365
- 等级
- AU55
- 价格
- 94,258
- 详细说明
- A vivid and exceptionally attractive example of the eagerly sought 1853/'2' double eagle variety. Warm rose-gold color blankets both sides of this lustrous, frosty Choice AU example. The devices are sharply to fully defined and the primary diagnostic for the FS-301 attribution is readily evident within the lower loop of the digit 3 in the date.<p>An intriguing variety by any measure, the 1853/'2' double eagle has both fascinated and perplexed numismatists for years. The variety was discovered around 1959 and was popularized by Walter Breen who later carried it as an overdate in his <em>Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins</em>. The variety is listed as a clear overdate in Bill Fivaz's and J.T. Stanton's <em>Cherrypicker's Guide</em> and has been considered the only overdate in the entire Liberty Head double eagle series. Other scholars, however, are not so certain of its status as an overdate since the artifact within the 3 does not closely resemble that of a 2. Only the one obverse die is known for the 1853/'2' variety, which is also distinguished in its later die states by a distinctive die chip under the right foot of the letter R in LIBERTY (which is noted as die rust in some references) as well as a repaired crossbar in the letter A in STATES. This variety is typically encountered in lower grades, and while a few high grade pieces were retrieved with the treasures of the S.S. <em>Republic</em> and S.S. <em>Central America</em>, as here, the 1853/'2' remains particularly elusive in AU and Mint State.