Lot 384
1878. PCGS graded Proof 65. Proof only year. Nice blue and lilac toning. Only 600 minted. Here's a lovely coin, both sides fully Gem in quality with smooth, virtually unhairlined surfaces. Though not carrying the Cameo designation, we do notice some light frostiness on the raised portions. A coin whose PCGS Proof 65 grade is also justified, the surfaces with strong contrast between mirror field and razor-edged devices. Naturally toned, we can easily see this coin fitting into a top-quality collection.
The 1878 is the final date in the brief, Twenty-Cent series which ran from just 1875 to 1878. It is also one of two Proof-only deliveries of the Type, the mintage amounting to just 600 pieces, as we've already mentioned. While not as rare as the Proof-only 1877 in an absolute sense, the 1878 is pretty much as difficult to find in the highest grades. Pop 27; 12 finer, 11 in 66, 1 in 67 (PCGS # 5306) .
Struck at the zenith of America's "Gilded Age," this twenty-cent piece appeared during an era of industrial growth and labor unrest. Because most Americans spent long hours at their jobs in the late nineteenth century, upwards of 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week, few had the freedom or the wherewithal to devote to coin collecting. Hence, the small Proof coinage figures of the 1870s. Today, a hundred twenty-six years later (a mere clock tick in the span of human history), we have adequate leisure time to enjoy reliving the past; and coins like the Gem offered here provide a string through time binding that earlier Gilded Age to our own "Age of Discontinuity" as the social commentator, Peter Drucker, termed it.
Estimated Value $7,500 - 8,000.
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| Realized $8,813 |
