Draped Bust n Small Eagle Silver Dollars 1795-1798 Coin Guide

A precocious country during its shaping being, the United States grew swiftly in volume and eminence throughout its first the century as an independent populace. It didn't access adulthood almost as cleansing, however, as the image of Miss Liberty on U. S. Silver change.

When Liberty first appeared on the land's silver coins in 1794 she was childish and chirpy, with her curls flowing freely behind her. Focusing on that mark, collectors submit to these coins as the Flowing Hair class. Nevertheless it didn't take long for this ingenious- looking maiden to make the bursting flower of adulthood: The very next year a new sketch showed her, in the language of currency critic Cornelius Vermeule, as "a buxom Roman matron" having long, elegant fleece neatly together back with a ribbon and a bow and ample cleavage obvious above a fold of drapery.

This rotund-figured portrayal has come to be known as the Draped Bust invent, and it holds a significant distinction: It appears on the facade of the 1804 silver dough, one of the most notorious and most important U.S. coin rarities.

For a time, the Draped Bust likeness graced all five silver coins then being issued: the dough, half cash, quarter, dime and the dime. The money got the spring on all the others, however, receiving this fabricate partway through production in 1795. It didn't make its debut on the other four coins pending 1796.

Selection of the cash as the new originate's first cabinet underscored the dominance of that coin. The dough was the cornerstone of the financial routine devised by the Founding Fathers, and the one-money coin was not only the prime silver number but, in the survey of officials overseeing the Mint, the most prestigious as well as most important. They had made that earn in 1794 when they chose to have dollars struck before something also at the outset of silver penny, only then giving the go-onward for the minor silver pieces.

Replacement of the midstream-lived Flowing Hair project coincided with a change in leadership at the Mint. David Rittenhouse resigned as the Mint's first director at the end of June 1795, and his successor, Henry William DeSaussure, set out at once to recover the designs of all the denominations, particularly those struck in silver.

Possibly at the urging of President George Washington, DeSaussure engaged portraitist Gilbert Stuart to devise a new target for the silver coins. Stuart organized a diagram of the Draped Bust celebrity, reportedly basing the likeness on Philadelphia socialite Ann Willing Bingham, said to be the most stunning lady of her time. This sketch was translated to plaster by dancer John Eckstein of Providence, Rhode Island, and mint executed the dies Chief Engraver Robert Scot.

Though the Flowing Hair picture of Liberty was retired, the Mint kept the back essentially the same. It skinned a small, naturalistic eagle encircled by a wreath, with UNITED STATES OF AMERICA adorned around the border. On the Draped Bust penny, this "Small Eagle" reversal does bare fine refinements: The eagle seems more lissom, for example, and it's balanced ahead a cloud instead of an astound (as had been the instance on the Flowing Hair money). In addition, the wreath has been adapted: The before laurel brushwood have given way to kindling of palm and emerald. LIBERTY and the court are the only inscriptions on the face. Lettering on the perimeter proclaims the receipt of cost: HUNDRED CENTS ONE DOLLAR OR UNIT, with decorations separating the words.

The intact first-year production of Draped Bust silver dollars took place in the last two weeks of October, 1795 and totaled a modest 42,738 pieces. That's barely one-fourth the mintage of 1795 Flowing Hair dollars; some 160,000 of those had been struck formerly. Nonetheless, both types historically have commanded comparable premiums. The Flowing Hair money profited from it's varied grab as a mode coin: That sequence was made for only two being, and the 1794 is a chief find, so the 1795 is the only realistic decision for most buyers.

The Draped Bust/Small Eagle dough didn't last much longer. It remained in production for only four being, from 1795 to 1798, before the small eagle was replaced by a large, heraldic eagle. The Draped Bust studied retained its blackhead on the facade awaiting production of dollars was perched in 1804 because of onerous melting. When dollar coinage resumed in 1836, the facade weary a new Seated Liberty portrait.

Only about 450,000 Draped Bust/Small Eagle dollars were issued in the four living mutual, virtually three fourths of them in 1798. Noting scholar Walter Breen estimated that just 3 percent survive. The low crux came in 1797, when a meager 7,776 were bent. The rarest array is the 1797 dollar with 9 stars to Liberty's left, 7 to her right and small script in the quash legend. The low production facts are understandable, given the truth that during the 1790s a dollar represented a full day's pay for some Americans-and a living wage, at that.

Although the string is small, Draped Bust/Small Eagle dollars come in more than a dozen foremost varieties. Some of these distinctions are based on the dimension of the date and the inscriptions. Most of the varieties, however, are fixed to the number of stars on the frontage and the way they are agreed. There were 15 stars in the first two years, representing the number of states in the Union at the time. With Tennessee's admission, the number rose to 16 in 1797. Then, in 1798, it dropped back to 15 (apparently because old dies were being used) before finish up at 13 for the 13 primary colonies.

The collecting of this string by varieties took a major leap forward with the publication in 1950 of a citation book by Milford H. Bolender. Using his own specialized collection of these coins as a foundation, Bolender described and illustrated each category known to him. After vacant through some editions, his book was extensively revised by Jules Reiver in 1998. Another note by Q. David Bowers, with the assistance of Mark Borckardt, was published in 1993, correcting and updating the Bolender book and assigning a new numbering structure. Thus, the varieties of these dollars are identified by both Bolender (B) figures or Bowers/ Borckardt (BB) facts.

Dollars of this capture are scarce and vastly collectible even in lesser circulated grades and are atypical in mint proviso. Points to buttress for grind are the hair above Liberty's temple and the emblem of the eagle's breast.

Although the series is abruptly, it is commonly serene by brand only because each component is so scarce. Proofs of these coins weren't struck, but a few presentation pieces spectacle prooflike surfaces.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Diameter: 39-40 millimeters Weight: 26.96 grams Composition: .8924 silver.1076 copper Edge: Lettered Net Weight: .77344 ounce downright silver

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bowers, Q. David, Silver Dollars & Trade Dollars of the United States, A Complete Encyclopedia, Bowers & Merena, Wolfeboro, NH, 1993. Breen, Walter, Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins, F.C.I. Press/Doubleday, New York, 1988. Reiver, Jules, The United States Early Silver Dollars 1794 to 1804, Krause Publications, Iola, WI, 1998. Taxay, Don, The U.S. Mint and Coinage, Arco Publishing Co. Inc., New York, 1966. Yeoman, R.S., A Guide Book of United States Coins, 47th Edition, Western Publishing Co., Racine, WI, 1993.

Coin Information Provided Courtesy NGC.

Gobrecht Dollars 1836-1839

The United States Mint had ceased beautiful silver dollars in 1804. Although the denomination was the "flagship" fiscal part in U.S. money, exigency for it came generally from bullion depositors, and few buck coins circulated in the beginning of the 19th century. Much of each year's mintage was each melted domestically or exported.

By the 1820s and '30s however, two successive Mint directors, Samuel Moore and Robert M. Patterson, had advocated bracing cash currency. Although Moore obtained authorization to do so in 1831, it wasn't pending Patterson replaced him in 1835 the preparations finally got under way. Not since the 1792 half dismes were struck had so many Mint and other government officials extensive such an intense notice in the production of a new coin.

Mint Director Patterson, ambitious to make an artistic account, hired actor Thomas Sully to make sketching of a full notable of Liberty-along the outline of the allegorical stature Britannia seen on English coins. Patterson retained imminent artist Titian Peale to make the eagle for the riddle and instructed newly hired Second Engraver Christian Gobrecht to transmute the designs to metal. Gobrecht's blueprint was a composite of both Peale's and Sully's mechanism, as well as his own ideas. It was a masterful work and usual close acclaim. President Jackson and his Cabinet reviewed Gobrecht's sketches on October 17, 1835 and were well impressed.

The final blueprinted featured the reckon of Liberty seated on a sway, draped in a diverse-descent gown-suggesting statuary from Hellenistic Greece. She is looking over her right shoulder, her right arm supporting the Union protect. Her left arm holds a long baton with a Liberty cap on top. The undamaged middle badge stands abandoned on the frontage with no stars or lettered campaign, only the meeting below, giving the coin a medallic eminence, with Liberty a secluded, cameo body. A naturalistic eagle in departure adorns the transpose, the bird rising "onward and upward" as Patterson planned, a thinking planned to embody the abundant optimism the Americans had for the people's impending. The eagle flies amid a grassland of 26 large and small stars, representing the thirteen novel states and the thirteen admitted to the Union since 1789 (expecting Michigan's entry).

By November, 1836 all was arranged for check strikings in silver. A small number (presumably 18 pieces) of the new dollars were distributed in Philadelphia. Reaction was almost universally positive, with one exception. Patterson had planned Gobrecht to place his name on the new coin. He did so by inscribing C. GOBRECHT F. In small print in the pasture beneath the personage of Liberty-the 'F.' fixed for FECIT, Latin for "He made it." Gobrecht was criticized as a "conceited German" and vilified in the home plead. Patterson solved the problem by having Gobrecht move his name to the pedestal of the figure of Liberty, obvious only if one looks warily at the coin. The eighteen or so pieces struck with his name below the immoral are considered patterns and are very erratic.

Regular production of Gobrecht dollars began sometime in December of 1836. The 1,000 accepted stock dollars of 1836 were struck at the old 1792 standard delicacy of .8924. The same time was used for the 600 coins minted in March, 1837, but these pieces were created from planchets .900 subtle-as authorized by the Mint Act of 1837. So close in import, the two issues are clearly differentiated by alignment: the 1837 dollars have a medallic alignment-the face and overturn are aligned on a vertical axis, while the 1836 coins have a horizontal, or coin, alignment. All inventive dollars square 1836 will show the eagle snatched "onward and upward," while the restrikes made in the 1850s and '60s will have the eagle airborne horizontally. The about 25 coins made in 1838 are considered to be patterns, with thirteen stars around the margin of the facade replacing the stars on the converse fields. Only 300 dollars were struck in 1839 with Gobrecht's shape, and all were proposed for circulation. These coins, like the 1838 patterns, have reeded edges.

Throughout the 19th century Gobrecht dollars were very accepted with collectors. In the deceased 1850s, require far exceeded the offered supply. Mint Director James Ross Snowden, desirous of expanding the Mint's collection of coins during his term, decisive to take benefit of this setting. Funds were not unfilled for outright grasp of coins, so Snowden used Mint dies to generate numismatic curiosities such as the Class II and Class III 1804 dollars, "transitional" half dimes and dimes, and Gobrecht dough restrikes. He would then trade these restrikes and fantasy coins to confine collectors for unusual coins wanting in the Mint collection. These restrikes were made from 1858 through the summer of 1860 and again in 1867-68. Actual numbers made are strange, but it is estimated that the totality number of restrikes may exceed the first mintage.

All Gobrecht dollars were struck in the Philadel-phia Mint and have a resistant face, even the accepted circulation issues of 1836 and 1837. This is a single phenomenon in U.S. numismatics-the only series of coins intended for circulation struck as proofs. Counterfeits are near unknown, perhaps because of the proof surface, which is very hard to duplicate. The propose first begins to show friction on Liberty's knees and breasts and on the highpoint of the eagle's breast on the undo.

Traditionally given the class of usual gush coins, Gobrecht dollars are actively pursued by class collectors. The most normally encountered emerge is the ugly skirt 1836-dated restrike with name on establish and twinkling reorder. These restrikes compose more than two thirds of the Gobrecht dollars offered at sale in topical years, and they exist in an eclectic stretch of grades from heavily circulated to gem rider. Date collectors occasionally crack completion of a three-instance set of coins with the dates 1836, 1838 and 1839, but very few collectors undertake the challenge of a complete set of Gobrechts. Such a set would be virtually impossible to assemble because of the several face/setback mulings made by Mint Director Snowden in the deceased 1850s.

Beginning in 1837 Gobrecht's Seated Liberty pattern was adopted on all U.S. silver coins from the dime through buck. The hitch with its naturalistic eagle was dropped for the part, half dough and dough denominations in favor of a revision of John Reich's heraldic eagle of 1807. The facade intention, only faintly modified from Gobrecht's unusual concept, was used on the buck awaiting 1873.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Diameter: 39 millimeters Weight: 1836 Original: 26.96 grams Others: 26.73 grams Composition: 1836 Originial: .8924 silver.1076 copper Others: .900 silver.100 copper Edge: 1836 Plain; 1838-39 Reeded Net Weight: 1836 Original: .77351 scrap untainted silver Others: .77344 ounce untainted silver

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bowers, Q. David, Silver Dollars and Trade Dollars of the United States, Bowers and Merena Galleries, Wolfeboro, NH, 1993. Bowers, Q. David, The History of United States Coinage As Illustrated by the Garrett Collection, Bowers and Merena Galleries, Wolfeboro, NH, 1979. Breen, Walter, Walter Breen's Complete Encylopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins, F.C.I./Doubleday, New York, 1988. Julian, Robert. W. "The Gobrecht Dollars of 1836-1838," Legacy Magazine, November-December, 1988. Pollock, Andrew W. United States Patterns and Related Issues, Bowers and Merena Galleries, Wolfeboro, NH, 1994.

Coin Information Provided Courtesy NGC.