An 1834 Half Eagle. What do you think of it?
BillJones
Posts: 34,984 ✭✭✭✭✭
I've been toying with ways to present this piece ... There are some interesting issues with it.
In the end I've just decided to put out there and write about it later if there is any interest.
Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
3
Comments
Rare crosslet 4 variety.
Looks AU-58 or MS-61, but maybe wiped across the "5 D ." area and/or elsewhere ?
Very nice looking slider Unc. coin, Bill! Thanks for sharing. Who wouldn't want to own a beautiful coin like that?
Very Good!
Let's see how this develops. I'll be back tomorrow.
It looks PL, is it?
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
I know very little about gold.But this one is a
head scratcher. Reverse looks MS 64, and the
obverse looks AU.
.
It looks like a really nice AU from the picture. If you say there are issues with it, I guess all I can do is look close and guess about stuff, like being wiped, maybe a rim hit hidden by a prong, "putty," etc., in hopes that something I say makes you say, "Yup, that's what I see, too."
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
AU by wear but with more marks than I like to see on coins of that grade. (I am not a gold specialist.)
Bill - Not sure what interesting issues you want to write about, but I'll fuel the fire a bit:
1) The coin is in a PCGS 61 holder.
2) It exhibits die clash on both obverse and reverse. In the vertical lines of the shield you can see Liberty's cincture, including ERT of LIBERTY. Around her ear you can see the shield stripes.
3) Although fairly rare (R-4), it is not the rarest Classic Head Half Eagle die pair. In fact, it isn't even the rarest die pair for the year 1834.
4) It was minted in 1835.
I can't contribute anything, but I'll watch this thread with interest.
Cool coin.
Looks like it's got mint state details and really nice color, but has quite a bit of "chatter" in the fields on both the obverse and reverse and across the portrait on the obverse...I'd guess MS-60.
The weight specifications were changed on all U.S. gold coins in 1834 because the intrinsic value of the old-tenor gold pieces was greater than their face value, leading to widespread hoarding and melting. The Classic Head design was introduced to make the new coins easily recognizable and a substantial mintage of 657,460 half eagles of the new design were struck.
Grading by the images, it is in a P62 holder, looks nice but I would have to see in hand....
Best, SH
au58/61
That is nicer than any CHG that I had, and its a crosslet! Tough to find in high grades. That being said, there is no way I would grade above AU-58, the TPG's are loose with this series. There are luster breaks throughout. it does look nice and original.
I like it
They removed "e pluribus unum" from the reverse. Engravers had to crank out a lot of dies in a short time, as they were expecting a massive inflow of the heavier old gold coins. A lot of work for the die makers: how many times did theyhave to hit a 2-bead punch to make the border on obv and rev?
That is interesting, and I had not heard that before. How has this come to light? From die state evidence? Usually the the mint's records don't have information about something as minor as a crosslet on a 4 in the date.
Okay, a number of you guys have talked about the history of this issue so I won't rehash that unless someone asks. Then I do it in a new topic.
I spotted this coin using the "shop" function on the PCGS registry. I asked the dealer to bring the piece to the fall Baltimore show, but they told me it had been sold at the show. When the coin didn't disappear from their listings three weeks later, I contacted them again. They told me the coin was available and shipped it to me on approval.
The coin is in a PCGS MS-61 holder. When I saw it my initial grade was between AU-55 and 58. The piece has good eye appeal, but there were a large number of small marks and slight dulling in the fields that made the coin look like a Choice AU to me. The dealer and I had a telephone conversation, and I ultimately bought the piece for several thousand dollars less than the asking price which was still on the Mint State level.
Grading, of course, is an art and a science, and there are different ways to grade coins. One school follows the line that the "cartwheel" mint luster has a heavy influence on the grade. The luster on this piece is not broken, but it is impaired. Since there is no flattening of the design devices coupled with the unbroken luster, some graders will say that MS-61 is the proper grade.
At any rate this is where the "collector bug" bites. The "Coin Facts" survival estimate for this date and variety is 125 pieces in all grades. That makes it the rarest coin in the Red Book listing, which is the way I am collecting this series (no die varieties other than this one). The runner up is the 1838-C half eagle which has an estimated survival number of 175 pieces. For the record I have seen far more 1838-C half eagles than 1834 Crosslet 4 Classic Head $5 gold coins. Many of those 1838-C $5 gold coins were "ugly" to say the least, but they existed. At one FUN show I spotted five, three in one dealer's inventory, 1838-C $5 coins on the bourse floor.
Looking at the PCGS pop reports there are 2, 1834 Crosslet 4 Classic Head $5 coins in MS-61, 6 in MS-62 and one in MS-63 with none higher. Although 6 is a low number, the real number could be even lower given the chance of resubmissions in search of the elusive MS-63 grade.
As for AU examples, one dealer I know and greatly respect had one, but he told me, "You don't want to see it because it's ugly." I had him show to me anyway, and I had to agree with him. It was "ugly" and to paraphrase Winston Churchill, it would not wake up sober by tomorrow.
According to "Coin Facts," other than the Pogue coin, which is the MS-63, no other Mint State examples of the 1834 Crosslet 4 Classic Head have been sold at auction since 2006. The MS-60 listed for 2014 is an "Unc. details" problem coin.
Going by the auction pictures, there have been some nice AUs sold but that begs two problems. First, I'm going by pictures. Second, one never knows how high the winning bidder would have gone in the auction. This is one minor flaw when one uses auction results for values. Recently my luck at auctions has not been good. I've run into more than a few people who bid as if "price is no object."
So here is this coin, which fits very well into the rest of my collection of Classic Head $5 gold pieces. I need one more date to finish the set. If can find the three quarter eagles I'm lacking maybe I will mount an exhibit entitled "Andy Jackson's Gold!"
Bill - Here is what I know on the Crosslet pops. I've researched auction and sale records back for years on the CHG, and did some statistical analysis on the cumulative results. Based on that, I think the Coin Facts estimate of 125 survivors of the Crosslet 4 is a tad low. It is more in the line of 175-200. I think the Coin Facts estimate of 175 survivors of the 1838-C is spot on, and I have identified over 100 of them.
For the MS population, there is the PCG MS 63 coin, and there is an NGC 64 coin that did show up in auction in 2007 and again in 2008 for $95k.
In MS 62, you are right, the population of 6 in PCGS is high. In late 2003, the population shot from 2, where it had been since the late 90s, to 5, indicating that somebody was resubmitting. I can definitely identify 2, and likely identify a third specimen in PCGS 62 ( a crossover). So the population is really 2 or 3, and at most 4.
In PCGS 61, your coin was recently added to the population. Other than that, there was one other coin in PCGS 61 that has been there since before 1993. I have never seen the other PCGS 61, and it is possible that at some point that coin got upgraded to PCGS 62, and the pop report for 61 did not adjust. I don't know.
Hope that helps.
Thank you for those bits of information, Ronyahski. I have noted that some of the "Coin Facts" numbers tend to be low. When I was working a survey of surviving early type coins from "Coin Facts," the Dannruether - Bass book and David Bowers' type coin red book, the Coin Facts numbers were the lowest.
Still if the 1834 Crosslet is not as rare as the 1838-C, why did Divid Akers' auction numbers contradict that? He had an 1834 category where the auction catalog did not mention the variety of the 1834 $5 coin offered, but that didn't seem to allow enough coins for the 1834 Crosslet to catch up the 1838-C. I know I have not seen them on the bourse floor.
I would've graded it AU 58 due to the significant chatter and handling marks in the fields. It is a cool variety and a nice coin.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
Here is a different picture of Bills' coin. FWIW, I like it as a 61.
OOOPs
Beautiful.
Bill Jones = numismatist
Imho
"If I say something in the woods and my wife isn't there to hear it.....am I still wrong?"
My Washington Quarter Registry set...in progress
Because (my) statistics can lie! Seriously though, I can't disagree with you that much. The way we did the statistics, the coins are tied. Empirical evidence like the Akers study, and the current and raw PCGS/NGC pops, indicate that the 34 Crosslet is a bit more rare than the 38-C. In updating Akers, which I have done, I've continued to find more auction results for the 38-C. And in your years of experience you've seen more 38-Cs than Crosslets, that is persuasive.
It's just the way we did the statistical study, where we had to make some guestimates. One of those guestimates was how many more 1834s are still out there that have not yet been auctioned or slabbed ( and how many of those are Crosslets) vs. how many 38-Cs are still out there yet to be put into public eye. So based on raw mintages of the dates (way more 1834s than 1838-Cs), and that likely more 1834s are still laying around than 1838-Cs, the stats basically say that there are a bit more Crosslets yet to be discovered.
And I agree with you that the old auction records should not be allowed too much of a pass for failing to identify a Crosslet 4 from the other 1834s. The Crosslet 4 was identified around 1911, with much fanfare, so the numismatic community has been on notice for over a hundred years.
P.S. - I can respond re: my comment about the Crosslets being minted in 1835; didn't want to veer the discussion.
I think J.H. Clapp had the discovery coin (unless Breen made that up, too).
It looks like this coin was at one time in a PCGS AU58 holder and was sold in a Heritage auction at the 2005 ANA in SF.
Same coin, correct?
Lance.
[https://coins.ha.com/itm/classic-half-eagles/half-eagles/1834-5-crosslet-4-au58-pcgs-first-year-of-issue-for-the-newly-created-classic-head-design-by-william-kneass-designed-in/a/382-10349.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515]
Yup, nice work, Lance.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
Can't be, Bill's is a 61.
Great detective work Lance
I suppose this point deserves a separate thread, but I have noticed that generally reverses look much nicer than obverses. I am guessing that the reason for that is related to the slightly higher features on the obverse side of most coins while often the reverse features are less likely to project higher than the rim which acts as a protective barrier.
Perhaps the point is hard to conceptualize, but think of how many cases for smartphones have a raised lip around the rim which does wonders in diminishing scratches across the entire face of the smartphone.
It looks like my initial grade of AU-58 was spot on, at least in 2005! Nice detective work!
Although the reverse is often better than the obverse on most early and mid 19th century coins, my opinion is that the obverse is better on this one, at least when you see it in-hand.
It is interesting to note how the Heritage photos of the earlier era cover up or deemphasize a lot of marks, especially on the reverse.
Very interesting thread... Nice gold coin, and the detailed analysis of population is well done. Cheers, RickO
Grading is evolving, lol, dancing to the money tunes. Personally I have no problem with it and other coins as an Unc. as it never circulated or experienced wear.
Yes, Breen was a bit off. Clapp bought his coin at a Henry Chapman auction in 1911. Also that year, future Secretary of Treasury William Woodin sold his duplicate Crosslet 4 in a March 1911 Thomas Elder Sale. The discovery piece was also sold in a 1911 Max Mehl auction, by collector Charles W. Crowell from Denver, who discovered the coin several years prior.
Edit : Woodin was Secy of Treasury, not State.
Good thread. And Bill -- nice coin, whether called AU58 or MS61 (there is a school of thought that would say that 58 and 61 can be the equivalent grade in many cases).
And nice color and luster for a Crosslet 4. In my experience that issue is often rough, banged up and impaired, much more so than the average Classic Head $5.
why are people trying to grade from an image? and why is this guy asking what do you think? really? I doubt the dealers of today would do this. Only grade coins in person otherwise you miss lines, luster, surfaces crud, etc
ronyahski shows how images can be so different.
People are trying to grade from an image because it can be done fairly accurately, especially with quality photos. Most seasoned collectors and dealers around here can reject many coins just by a photo. Why have something sent to you if you already see things you don't like? While viewing in hand is always the final arbiter, you can probably figure 75% of the time by a good photo if a coin is worth your time or not. The Heritage enlarged auction photos of MS gold and silver coins essentially bring them into your living room. Yeah, you might miss a rogue hairline or stray mark, but you'll get 90% of the coin from that look. Gold coins are the easiest as they rarely have interfering toning to hide the luster. Most of the coins at GC (and Heritage on-line only auctions) sell to buyers who view only photographs. It can be done.
Interesting that all this activity happened in a single year, 1911. Thanks for the additional information.
Did you not read the other posts in this string, or are you just a troll? The debate was, is the coin in question AU or low end Mint State? I often post here to help educate other collectors.
grading from photos is a good exercise...not a best practice.
asking what people think about coins is what we do here. it's educational and fun for those who enjoy coins.