| Light silver gray at the centers with darker iridescent toning toward the borders. Very lightly abraded surfaces with a faint diagonal scratch on the eagle's body. Well struck with very slight central weakness. An exceptional, lightly circulated example with traces of lustre visible. This is the rarest of six known varieties for the first year of dime coinage, with the present example among the finer coins known, certainly well within the Condition Census including the top six examples. This example holds second place in the JRCS Dime Census compiled by Russell Logan in September 1996. Although certainly much has transpired in the past six years, that census listing is the most recent available. This is the only use of the obverse die while the reverse was also used for JR-4. The obverse has a very faint bisecting crack from R through the hair and bust to the rim right of the date. A short branch from this crack reaches the center dot. The reverse has an extremely light die crack from the tail feathers to right wing and another from tip of the upper right leaf toward final S. From Superior’s sale of January 1993, Lot 262. Earlier from our sale of November 1986, Lot 373. |
