Lot 1913
1803/2 $5 Capped Bust. NGC graded MS-61 Breen-1D. Lightly toned. A lustrous early half eagle that has warm glowing color and a good strike. Given the proper amount of strike pressure, the coin is in fact fully brought up by the dies. We see no reason to add in a "however" here, since there are no soft areas as are so often found on this date, none at all! In its early days, the U.S. mint used a hand-operated coining press. The presses worked by a screw, and were similar to those used for cutting out planchets. The obverse die, of course replaced the cutting cylinder, while the reverse die was mounted in the cup at the base. In 1793, Adam Eckfeldt invented a device for automatically feeding and ejecting the planchets. The importance of the automatic feed can be inferred from an early description of the 19th century London Mint, where every "moneyer" had lost at least one of his finger joints from hand-feeding the planchets into the press! The process of striking these early $5 gold pieces was slow and tedious, but, as can be seen here, the result in the form of the struck coin was amazingly precise and beautiful. 33,506 coins minted. Pop 46; 98 finer.
Estimated Value $10,000 - 11,000.
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| Realized $12,650 |
