Lot 2175

Double Struck. Predominantly gold with steel gray, green, and russet toning. Horizontal adjustment marks are visible on the obverse, from Liberty's eye to the left across her hair. A few minor edge bruises are noted. Despite having been cleaned and retoned, this is truly an exciting half dollar and a fitting way to begin this offering of half dollars from the Russell J. Logan Collection. This example is not listed in the JRCS Pre-Turban Half Dollar Census published in the IJohn Reich JournalI for December 1998. If it were, it would have qualified as tied for the finest reported from 23 collections submitted to Russell Logan for his compilation. In the 1990 third edition of Overton, editor Don Parsley published the top five examples known to him for each variety. For this variety, he recorded grades of 55, 40, 40, 30, 20. Some additional information regarding Condition Census and top examples for a given variety may be found in Stephen J. Herrman's IAuction & Mail Bid Prices Realized for R.4 to R.8 and Popular Varieties of Bust Half Dollars, 1794-1839.I This example falls within the top dozen listings for this variety.

The details of the original strike are primarily confined to the obverse and reverse borders. A few details are visible on the border below the date with part of a star visible at this point. Remnants of another star are visible on the border left of stars 6 and 7. The reverse has considerable details from the first strike including berries and leaf details on the border above STATES from the left branch. Portions of ST from the original strike are visible on the border above OF. In addition, a pair of leaves is clearly visible at bottom of the eagle's body, at the junction of the body and left wing.

The obverse has minor die cracks and light clash marks. Letters from UNITED may be seen clash marked at star 8 and LIBE. Clash marks from the obverse border dentils are visible at 7:00 on the reverse, extending along the border from this point.