Lot 957
1856. Slanting 5. PCGS graded AU-58. Less than a year after the "Type 2" or Narrow Head dollars went into circulation, all concerned knew that the design must be changed: Specimens were already coming back to the Mint for recoinage, some with dates hardly legible. And many coins hot out of press had the same fault, adjust the presses as you will: weakness in centers so that obverses looked worn, dates blurry.
As soon as Chief Engraver James Longacre could be spared from completing the experimental dies for the 1855 bronze pattern cents, Mint Director James Ross Snowden ordered him to begin work on a modified design for the gold dollar. Diameter would remain the same: Snowden, only a few years later, referred to the "evident evil" of simultaneously having in circulation two coins of the same denomination but different sizes. But the obverse head not only had to be of lower relief, it had to be arranged differently to avoid placing relief areas opposite reverse relief details wherever possible (PCGS # 7540) Estimated Value $220 - 240
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| Prix atteint $276 |
