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.

Draped Bust - Heraldic Eagle Silver Dollars 1798-1804

Throughout the 1790s heads repeated to cylinder off the guillotines of France as that country struggled to insist the democratic principles it had first espoused in 1789. Some Americans watched nervously from across the Atlantic and wondered if the violence of the mob would division to this country. Nevertheless America's democratic principles were tightly established, as it had already undergone the subject pain of revolution, war and two changes of government since 1776. By 1798 democracy in America start to come of age.

This adulthood of the United States was evident in the belated 1790s not only by America's refusal to be pulled into the war between England and France; it can also be seen in the changes in the people's corps of currency, the buck. The intention modifications of 1798 were actually stranded in events that began three being before. When a new and improved coin plead inwards at the Mint in Philadelphia in the mechanism of 1795, it made improvements doable both in the mass of coins formed as well as their worth. The new squash was able to right stamp out the large sized buck coins and enter all the object niceties in the dead invention.

The Draped Bust prominent actor intended money obverse Gilbert Stuart in an effort to elate U.S. change designs to "world brand" eminence. This purpose distinct a growing of the "immature" Liberty of the preceding Flowing Hair plan to a more "matronly" idea of the emblematic national emblem. In 1798 the childish hatchling eagle seen on the hitch of the past cash was replaced with an elder and more naturalistic eagle, one that was more in trust with heraldic iconography. One control in the iconography of the Heraldic Eagle overturn, though, was in the position of the arrows in the eagle's right scrape-the more moral residency in heraldry-leaving the lime stem in the left or fewer moral claw. This more military placement of the arrows was frequent on all heraldic eagle coins of the epoch.

During the six existence that Draped Bust Heraldic Eagle dollars were struck 1,153,709 coins were formed, all in the Philadelphia mint. There are dozens of die varieties, most involving only a jiffy difference in the placement of the stars, numerals, lettering or other construct rudiments.

Nevertheless there are some important shape changes in the sequence that are of gain to an expansive reach of collectors. On 1798 dollars there are two different patterns of stars on the back above the eagle's beginning. The former configuration, known as the "intersect archetype" was a modification of The Great Seal of the United States, with the stars arranged in two triangular groups of six tied by a specific star in the inside. The later mean was much simpler. Knowing as the "arc example," it had two analogy rows of stars: the top row had six, the flash row five stars, followed by one star on moreover piece of the eagle's cranium. No one knows precisely why the star patterns were tainted, but the past "cross pattern" configuration is commonly the scarcer of the two.

An interesting flounder occurred in the converse stars in 1799. An effective die was twisted that had 15 stars, somewhat than the vital 13. The mistake was discovered before any coins were struck, and somewhat than discard the die, the clouds were enlarged over the offending stars, cover all but the tips of the luxury star points. In 1800 a die was cut that had a luxury letter An at the end of AMERICA. The luxury lettered was polished away, but only the right portion of the letter was effaced, leaving what appears to be a letter I, hence creating the well-known AMERICAI range.

One of the most famed coins ever struck is considered a part of the Draped Bust chain-the 1804 dough. While the Mint struck dollars in 1804, all were created from leftover dies square 1802 and 1803, and no dollars were struck with the meeting 1804. However, thirty existence later when some presentation sets of U.S. coins were needed for diplomatic gifts, the Draped Bust drawing was resurrected and square 1804, as that was the last year the cash coin had been struck. These were the so-called "creative" or Class I 1804 dollars. The Class II and Class III 1804 "restrikes" were fashioned in the tardy 1850s for prominent collectors of the day. Only 15 specimens are known of all three types.

No dutiful proofs are known from this string but, as with the 1804 money, Mint officials were only too thrilled to oblige collectors in later existence. Sometime between 1836 and the dead 1850s recent looking resilient dollars appeared with the dates 1801, 1802 and 1803. These fantasy pieces are kindly valued by collectors.

Grading Draped Bust dollars can be a challenge. Certain die varieties are forever weak on the stars above the eagle's head because of die crash. Other varieties will show occasional areas of weakness due to die breakage. In high grades, signs of friction begin to show on the premier points of the locks above the brow and along the shoulder and bust line of Liberty. On the transpose, show first shows on the clouds, then the eagle's breast fluff. On dimly or irregularly struck coins, these intention facts may not be copious brought up. Counterfeits are known, and several justly illusory pieces dated 1799 surfaced in the early 1980s. These coins all have universal characteristics and parade dull, comatose surfaces. Authentication of any questionable Draped Bust dollar is amply recommended.

In decrease grades Draped Bust dollars are generally serene by die form specialists. Coins in XF and better situation are commonly required out by those who gather by date and major category. For mode purposes, most collectors want a lone, high grade, snag-liberated example of a common, well produced form. Such coins are totally obscure nowadays and usually pass a substantial premium when untaken.

After 1800 silver dollars began to recede from circulation. Many U.S. dollars were shipped overseas or melted for their high intrinsic value. Dollar production clogged all together in 1804, and the next generation did not have a current circulating dollar coin pending a direct artistic renaissance came to the Mint in 1836, led by Christian Gobrecht. Over the two centuries since their manufacture, the fleeting-lived string of Draped Bust dollars has continued to be one of the most widely collected in U.S. money.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Diameter: 39 to 40 millimeters Weight: 26.96 grams Composition: .8924 silver.1076 copper Edge: Lettered Net Weight: .77344 little natural silver

BIBLIOGRAPHY: American Numismatic Society, America's Silver Coinage, 1794-1891, American Numismatic Society, New York, 1987. Bowers, Q. David, Silver Dollars and Trade Dollars of the United States, A Complete Encyclopedia, Bowers and Merena Galleries, Wolfeboro, NH, 1993. Breen, Walter, Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins, F.C.I. Press/Doubleday, New York, 1988. Highfill, John W. The Comprehensive U.S. Silver Dollar Encyclopedia, Highfill Press, Inc., Broken Arrow, OK, 1992. Hilt, Robert P. Die Varieties of Early United States Coins, RTS Publishing Company, Omaha, NE, 1980. Reiver, Jules, The United States Early Silver Dollars 1794 to 1804, Krause Publications, Iola, WI, 1998.

Coin Information Provided Courtesy NGC.