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[L#0279] 1795 50C N MS64

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:60,000.00 USD Estimated At:100,000.00 - 150,000.00 USD
[L#0279] 1795 50C N MS64
Struck with scientific exactness throughout and remarkable given the primitive conditions at the early United States mint. It pays to recall that silver half dollars like this frosty choice 1795 were actually struck on a hand-operated press! No mechanical improvements aided in its manufacture. And yet, the coin speaks for itself with broad rims, nice stars, balanced impression including complete hair curls on Liberty. The eagle ranks among the sharpest we have ever found on a Flowing Hair half dollar of the earliest design (1794-5). Here, too, everything is bold. The color consists of steel gray with antique blue-gray sheen of iridescence. No unnecessary marks affect the delicate features or open fields.

During the most of the spring and summer 1795, half-dollar coinage commenced from 1795-dated dies [299,680], comprising 19 obverse and either 22 or 23 reverse dies, the first reverse left over from 1794. Several slightly differing head- and eagle-device punches were used during the year, the final ones attributed to John Smith Gardner, briefly Assistant Engraver: the famous and rare Small Heads. The Double Date and Three Leaves coins belong with this group, evidently at the end of the mintage, summer 1795.

Coinage was interrupted to allow personnel to devote time to making silver dollars and gold coins, on orders of the new Mint Director, Henry William DeSaussure.