Lot 3910
1801 $10 Capped Bust. PCGS graded MS-64 T-25, Rarity 3. An intensely lustrous bright golden-yellow. Problem-free planchet. A beauty. Pop 35; 2 in 65. Well preserved with smooth, velvety luster and rich yellow-gold features, a superlative coin for the grade now matter how you look at it. A great deal of discussion also surrounds a coin's strike. This is especially important on an early Eagle struck in the opening years of the Mint. The 1801 presented here has excellent detail with no sign of weakness to the centers. The stars, too, are outstanding and bold. Liberty's hair shows bold smooth waves and includes the uniquely designed forehead roll of hair, plus nice folds and artistically formed "mob" cap on her head. The hair and cap come together nicely at the back so that one is never sure where the cap ends and the hair begins. Are those strands of hair looped up over the front of the cap? Again, this is a very attractive design. Nor is the coin waylaid by anything like marks, adjustment lines, or rim bruises; nothing of the kind, everything is outstanding.
Robert Scot's designs for the $10 gold piece copied those of the quarter eagle. Liberty's draped and capped effigy continued from 1795-97; the heraldic eagle derived from that of the Great Seal of the United States, but with the same blunder as on the smaller denominations: The warlike arrows are in the dexter or more honorable claw, outranking the olive branch for peace (PCGS # 8564) .
Estimated Value $70,000 - 80,000.
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| Realized $109,250 |
