Rare & Rarer: Two Trade Dollar Varieties UPDATE - Two more rare varieties

lermish

It's tough to pick which coin to start with as I don't want to bury the lede.  

The 1877-S has two Doubled Die Reverses.  The FS-802 is scarce but not too difficult to find with a little bit of effort.  The FS-801 is very difficult, probably in the R6 range.  In his Trade Challenge 50 book, @alefzero said "The author has found but one and many experts and collectors (and grading services) have not seen one. But when you hold one in your hand and loupe it, there is absolutely no mistaking it."  This coin at MS63 is the 1/0 top pop at all services and is the finest known.  An old dip mutes the luster a little but it retoned nicely in an album and is a very attractive coin.  While I greatly enjoy this coin, my focus is solely on chopmarked trade dollars so it will be making its home in a top registry set. 

The 1875 Very Wide CC is THE stopper of the trade dollar varieties; there are fewer known examples than the 76-S DDO.  I believe this is the 6th known coin.  @stealer found the first in the wild. @IkesT has a cleaned AU, I think @Crypto has an XF, and @keoj has one. @mbogoman has a very attractive circ cam VF30, which I think is the only problem free example. I would love for the coin to grade XF45 but it's clearly been dipped and has noticeable hairlines; it will almost assuredly come back cleaned.  However, this is the only known chopmarked example so there are not a lot of alternatives from which to choose.  I now have the 76 Very Wide CC, which is the easiest (comparatively; it's still very scarce), and the hardest of the Very Wide CCs; 73 and 74 are still out there somewhere.

The Very Wide CC variety has a fascinating and mysterious background.  For some reason, this reverse die was held back and used sparingly from 1873-1876 until it was retired, as all 1877-1878 coins utilized the type 2 reverse. The 1876 is the most common of the four representing approximately 2/3 of the known population.  I speculate that the mint personnel were told to exhaust any remaining type 1 reverse dies which would explain the greater population of the 76 issue versus the other three.  No one knows why this particular die was used across four years as no other die was used in more than two.  

IkesT

Outstanding finds; had no idea there were any of the 1877-S FS-801 in that condition!

Congrats on the unique chopmarked 1875 very wide CC!

Crypto

@lermish said:
It's tough to pick which coin to start with as I don't want to bury the lede.  

The 1877-S has two Doubled Die Reverses.  The FS-802 is scarce but not too difficult to find with a little bit of effort.  The FS-801 is very difficult, probably in the R6 range.  In his Trade Challenge 50 book, @alefzero said "The author has found but one and many experts and collectors (and grading services) have not seen one. But when you hold one in your hand and loupe it, there is absolutely no mistaking it."  This coin at MS63 is the 1/0 top pop at all services and is the finest known.  An old dip mutes the luster a little but it retoned nicely in an album and is a very attractive coin.  While I greatly enjoy this coin, my focus is solely on chopmarked trade dollars so it will be making its home in a top registry set. 

The 1875 Very Wide CC is THE stopper of the trade dollar varieties; there are fewer known examples than the 76-S DDO.  I believe this is the 6th known coin.  @stealer found the first in the wild. @IkesT has a cleaned AU, I think @Crypto has an XF, and @keoj has one. @mbogoman has a very attractive circ cam VF30, which I think is the only problem free example. I would love for the coin to grade XF45 but it's clearly been dipped and has noticeable hairlines; it will almost assuredly come back cleaned.  However, this is the only known chopmarked example so there are not a lot of alternatives from which to choose.  I now have the 76 Very Wide CC, which is the easiest (comparatively; it's still very scarce), and the hardest of the Very Wide CCs; 73 and 74 are still out there somewhere.

The Very Wide CC variety has a fascinating and mysterious background.  For some reason, this reverse die was held back and used sparingly from 1873-1876 until it was retired, as all 1877-1878 coins utilized the type 2 reverse. The 1876 is the most common of the four representing approximately 2/3 of the known population.  I speculate that the mint personnel were told to exhaust any remaining type 1 reverse dies which would explain the greater population of the 76 issue versus the other three.  No one knows why this particular die was used across four years as no other die was used in more than two.  

You’re lucky I had a much higher bid on the 75cc over several thousands. But Dan and I were diner and I forgot. Better in your set anyway

Congrats, nice coins

lermish

@Crypto said:

@lermish said:
It's tough to pick which coin to start with as I don't want to bury the lede.  

The 1877-S has two Doubled Die Reverses.  The FS-802 is scarce but not too difficult to find with a little bit of effort.  The FS-801 is very difficult, probably in the R6 range.  In his Trade Challenge 50 book, @alefzero said "The author has found but one and many experts and collectors (and grading services) have not seen one. But when you hold one in your hand and loupe it, there is absolutely no mistaking it."  This coin at MS63 is the 1/0 top pop at all services and is the finest known.  An old dip mutes the luster a little but it retoned nicely in an album and is a very attractive coin.  While I greatly enjoy this coin, my focus is solely on chopmarked trade dollars so it will be making its home in a top registry set. 

The 1875 Very Wide CC is THE stopper of the trade dollar varieties; there are fewer known examples than the 76-S DDO.  I believe this is the 6th known coin.  @stealer found the first in the wild. @IkesT has a cleaned AU, I think @Crypto has an XF, and @keoj has one. @mbogoman has a very attractive circ cam VF30, which I think is the only problem free example. I would love for the coin to grade XF45 but it's clearly been dipped and has noticeable hairlines; it will almost assuredly come back cleaned.  However, this is the only known chopmarked example so there are not a lot of alternatives from which to choose.  I now have the 76 Very Wide CC, which is the easiest (comparatively; it's still very scarce), and the hardest of the Very Wide CCs; 73 and 74 are still out there somewhere.

The Very Wide CC variety has a fascinating and mysterious background.  For some reason, this reverse die was held back and used sparingly from 1873-1876 until it was retired, as all 1877-1878 coins utilized the type 2 reverse. The 1876 is the most common of the four representing approximately 2/3 of the known population.  I speculate that the mint personnel were told to exhaust any remaining type 1 reverse dies which would explain the greater population of the 76 issue versus the other three.  No one knows why this particular die was used across four years as no other die was used in more than two.  

You’re lucky I had a much higher bid on the 75cc over several thousands. But Dan and I were diner and I forgot. Better in your set anyway

Congrats, nice coins

Thanks, I wish I was at the dinner!

I acknowledge I got an amazing bargain...but my top bid was pretty high also😉 I owe @OriginalDan a lot for keeping you in your cups during the auction!😂

Crypto

I was going to bid $2505, I wouldn’t have wanted it past that. Would you have won it for 2600?

lermish

@Crypto said:
I was going to bid $2505, I wouldn’t have wanted it past that. Would you have won it for 2600?

My initial top bid was $2900 but I raised it to $3100 just in case.

lermish

A forumite asked me a question regarding the difficulty in finding a chop marked 77-S FS-801 for my set. I did some quick math and research and thought I would share my findings:

@lermish said:

There is currently one graded, chopped 77-S FS-801 and it is mis-attributed, it is definitively NOT the 801. There is another chopmarked MS61 but it is not attributed. So there may be a couple of details coins and/or unattributed coins, but I've never seen one, and I look at quite a few coins in auctions/dealers/etc.

There are an estimated 60 of them known in all grades/conditions. There are probably 15-20k total surviving 1877-S so (if the survival estimate of all 77-S and all FS-801 are correct), 0.3-0.4% of the population should be the FS-801. Roughly 10% of surviving 77-S are chopmarked, so given a population of 1500-2000, I would expect to see 4-5 total chopmarked 77-S FS-801. So there are probably/hopefully a couple more out there but they aren't easy to come across.

lermish

I was recently very fortunate to be able to add two more extremely scarce trade dollar varieties to my collection.

The 76-P type 2/2 is a key date for the variety collector, chopmarked or not. Interestingly enough, when chopmarked it is much less scarce versus the "common" type 1/2. I am aware of 5 chopmarked 2/2 coins versus a total chopped 76-P population of something probably in the 30-40 range (in all conditions and varieties). Including all chopped and non-chopped coins, there are probably 40-50 2/2s versus a total extant 76-P population of 2000-2500.

This coin was discovered by @stealer who made the very wise decision to consign it to HA. After adding this coin, the only empty slot in my "Complete" chopmarked variety set is the 76-S DDO. Complete is in parentheses because several important and interesting varieties are still not included in the set although I will be adding them over time. Like the 76-P 1/1 which has only two known chopmarked examples...more on that in the coming months.

The 76-S 1/2 Large S is one of two die pairings of the 76-S type 2 reverse with a normal sized mintmark. Anecdotally, this variety has been much more elusive than the 2/2 Large S. @OGDan and @crypto did some interesting analysis of the variety years ago and discovered that its reed count is significantly lower than all other coins in the series (157 vs a normal range of 178-194). Estimated total population is 120 although I believe the true number is lower. I estimate the chopped population to be fewer than 10. This coin was cherry picked raw on eBay.

kaz

Fascinating examples of some scarce varieties. Can you comment on the interesting punctate symbols on the rev of the last coin? I have never seen any like those.

lermish

@kaz said:
Fascinating examples of some scarce varieties. Can you comment on the interesting punctate symbols on the rev of the last coin? I have never seen any like those.

Per @ChopmarkedTrades book:

Buddhist numismatic charms or ‘temple coins’ are a well-documented area of collecting, and they often incorporate many design elements of Chinese cash; they are not limited explicitly to one nation but are commonly associated with China. Somewhat less well understood than these purpose-struck tokens are pieces that use commercial coinage as hosts, with added inscriptions that suggest a seemingly similar purpose; the plated 1857-S United States Seated Half Dollar (Fig. 257) is one such coin. While not all of the characters of the inscription are legible, part of the text that can still be read includes the following: *眼出佛见; *在喜; an approximate translation of what can be identified (including inferring from context) translates as "You can see the Buddha as long as you believe in him and have a good heart; it's lucky to see him." The purpose of the character depicted on the reverse (apparently 人 within 王) is unknown; the mark appears to have been scratched into the surface by hand, and would have taken too long to apply to be a viable commercial chop (the mark would have only penetrated the surface slightly). At least one other piece with an apparently similar purpose is known, a United States Trade Dollar with an inscription etched directly into the surface of the coin with many individual small drill marks; it is likely that several more exist. Regardless of the explicit purpose of these pieces as a component of the Buddhist faith, their intent is almost certainly not commercial, and the marks cannot be referred to as chopmarks. Additional research is needed to properly attribute coins of this type; it is possible that Chinese references contain additional information.

When I am able to get better pictures, I intend on getting them translated.

jesbroken

PM sent.
Jim

ChopmarkedTrades

The stippled Chinese characters are not commercial chopmarks, they're likely temple offering inscriptions; I've seen at least five or six examples of US Trade Dollars with marks of this style, but they seldom bring any substantial premium. Still historically interesting and worthy of further investigation.