Lot 1864
1922 Grant Half Dollar, with star. PCGS graded MS-66. Delicate light rainbow toning enriches the borders on both sides. Only 4,256 struck. A lock-solid frosty gem with strong primary luster and rich toned highlights on both sides, undipped, exquisite, gleaming with fresh radiance. More than adequately struck for the date, almost 100% so, since this issue rarely is on Grant’s temple where the hair strands tend to merge together, but certainly a coin that earns credit where fullness of design is of major concern. Pop 40; 8 finer, 3 in 66+, 5 in 67. (PCGS # 9307)
Note: The dates 1822-1922 refer to the centennial of birth of General (later President) Ulysses Simpson Grant, whose portrait (after a Mathew Brady photograph) adorns the obverse. The tiny letter c between those dates is actually a monogrammed LGF for Laura Gardin Fraser, the illustrious sculptor who modeled these coins.
The reverse depicts a small frame house at Point Pleasant, Ohio, near Cincinnati, where Grant was born on April 27, 1822. Laura Gardin Fraser worked from photographs of the house taken before it was restored, showing two stands of trees omitted on the centennial medal.
The log cabin label was affixed to this design by Andrew W. Mellon, then Secretary of the Treasury, who so described it in his annual report for fiscal 1922. As Slabaugh has pointed out, Mellon confused this frame house with a log cabin Grant built over 30 years later on his wife's farm near St. Louis. Estimated Value $10,000-UP
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| Realized $14,375 |
