Lot 1733
Tied for Finest Graded 1795 Half Eagle. NGC graded MS-65. An exceptionally well-struck example of the first year of this denomination, with a tiny mintage of just 8,707 pieces, virtually all of which have since disappeared as the known population, in all grades, is far smaller than that. The strike on both obverse and reverse of this specimen is very nearly medallic: all obverse stars display full definition and Liberty's locks are crisp from forehead down to her shoulder. All of the eagle's wing feathers, as well as its eye, also stand out in high relief. The wreath in the eagle's grasp also shows sharp definition down to the veins in the leaves. Only the highest points of the eagle's breast feathers and legs may be said to lack full detail, but this is probably because the obverse is so medallic in appearance (the minting pressure, at this period, normally could not bring up the deepest design details on both sides on the same coin). The coin's color is bright and original. Small pebbles of die-rust can be found near the date and at the bottom of Liberty's portrait (and a small circular patch on the reverse above the F in OF by the border), the result no doubt of humid storage conditions for the dies in steamy colonial Philadelphia.
From an historical standpoint, this coin virtually defines its numismatic age. Struck in the seventh year of Washington's term as President (and just four years before he died), this coin witnessed frenzied changes in the young Republic's emergence: passage of the first Naturalization Act requiring five years of residence to become an American citizen, the migration of French settlers into still-wild Ohio (called the Northwest Territory, where battles raged with Indians of the twelve native tribes until the previous year; in 1795 those tribes signed a treaty of peace with General "Mad Anthony" Wayne), and the United States paid tributes to the foraging Barbary Pirates to keep them at bay while American commercial ships sought to create trade routes past Spain and into the Mediterranean. At the same time, at home, the first primitive railroad in the new nation was laid down in Boston.
So, for the really serious collector seeking to acquire one of the very finest known of this nation's earliest federal gold coins, the present example represents a chance to reach--and reach hard--for a coin to be proud of and to place among his most prized possessions. Few extant examples of the 1795 half eagle come close to this coin; and few collectors, surely, have ever even seen an example with this coin's qualities.
One of five pieces given this grade by NGC, while PCGS has graded only one other MS65. Neither service has seen a better example, making this piece a tie for finest graded to date.
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