| Light gray with very slightly reflective surfaces. Slightly deeper gray along the borders with splashes of pale blue toning. Minor hairlines and other trivial surface marks are present. Clearly the rarest variety of the year although 20 examples were recorded in the Census. In their March 1997 catalogue, Heritage described this as "MS-62 questionable toning." Russell Logan considered this AU-50. Purchased after publication of the last Dime Census, this would have qualified as finest reported. Only obverse die use. The reverse was used earlier for 1824 JR-2 and 1825 JR-4 and later for 1827 JR-1. Perfect obverse die. The reverse has an extremely faint die crack from rim to left wing tip, just left of U and another virtually undetectable die crack from the upper right curve of D to the border over extreme right edge of this letter. From Heritage's March 1997 ANA sale, Lot 5163. |
