1508

1794 Flowing Hair $1

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / US Coins Start Price:37,000.00 USD Estimated At:75,000.00 USD and UP
1794 Flowing Hair $1
1794 Flowing Hair Dollar. . B-1, BB-1. ANACS graded Details of Very Fine Net Fine 12, tooled. Quite well struck on a far better planchet than usually seen including excellent details and a full complete date. The "tooling" is hardly evident and masterfully done. Well worth our conservative estimate.

All known strikes of this issue were made on October 15, 1794. The designs were by Robert Scot, originally from England, who also personally cut the dies. All silver specimens known to us show weakness in the strike at the left obverse and reverse due to skewing or oblique alignment of the dies; the unique copper specimen with lettered edge, apparently intended as a Proof or Pattern, does not show this skewing and therefore may have been struck first or on a separate occasion. It is possible that a few silver strikes were made before the skewing occurred and thus would have a full strike at the left sides, but we cannot recall having seen any, nor do we have any record of sale of such a specimen.

As a rule, silver dollars from this year are rarely offered at public auction, and the demand for these coins far exceeds the supply, hence the rising price level. This particular coin shows good details despite the surface manipulation, and yet numismatists for many generations have been willing to accept or overlook such shortcomings as most pieces are in major collections and off the market.

As always, the lower left portion of the obverse (specifically the first few stars and the lower digits in the date) are weakly defined, as is the left side of the reverse.

According to the authoritative Bowers encyclopedia entry for 1794, "Dollars authorized: The Mint Act of April 2,1792 authorized the production of silver dollars of 416 grains weight, with silver content of 371.25 grains, equivalent to.89243 fine. The remaining metal was to be copper, added for strength. Such coins were intended to circulate at par with Mexican and other Spanish-American silver "dollars" (of the eight reales denomination) which were common in the states at the time. Indeed, earlier the Continental Congress had denominated its paper currency in Spanish milled dollars. The framers of the Mint Act of 1792, mindful of Alexander Hamilton's Report of January 28, 1791, chose the gross weight of 416 grains and the pure silver content of 371-1/4 grains for the silver dollar, and other silver coins in preparation, to match the average weight of Carolus dollars then in circulation, and to exceed the middle fineness Hamilton had specified. (Hamilton had specified pure silver content as ranging from 374 grains to 371 to 368, corresponding to 899.8918 and.8846 Fine.) No one knew the official Spanish fineness (65/72=902-7/9 or.90278), but the actual Spanish dollars were not then coined in that quality.

A problem with the weight: Albion Cox, Mint assayer who was well versed in coinage (and who earlier produced New Jersey coppers), found that the statutory fineness of.89243 was difficult to attain, and he proposed adjusting it to the point at which the silver content of the dollar was 371.25 grains (thus achieving the amount of silver Congress wanted), but with the copper content lowered to 41 grains, thus yielding a 412.25-grain coin of.900456 fine silver (which was close to what Congress authorized over 40 years later under the Act of March 31, 1837). Congress did not agree with the Cox plan.

"Mint Director David Rittenhouse then proposed to increase the silver content from 371.25 grains to 374.74, for a total coin weight of 416 grains, resulting in.90084 silver fineness. Under this proposal, unauthorized by Congress, all 1794 dollars and, it is believed, most if not all 1795 Flowing Hair dollars were minted. Each had 3.49 grains of extra silver, above the Mint Act's limit of 1/144 deviation (2.5781/8 grains) in weight of fine silver. Depositors receiving silver dollars in exchange for bullion were thus short about 1% in value for each dollar received…" .
Estimated Value $75,000-UP.