1846-O $1 MS(PCGS#6933)

June 2023 U.S. Coins Auction

Auctioneer

Stack's Bowers

Lot Number

3187

Grade

AU53

Price

2,520

Lot Description

1846-O Liberty Seated Silver Dollar. OC-1, the only known dies. Rarity-2. AU-53 (PCGS). Light golden-gray patina blankets lustrous surfaces that retain much of the original frosty mint finish. The strike is well above average for the issue, the reverse sharp throughout and the obverse uncommonly bold along the border from 12 to 5 o'clock. An extremely popular issue with collectors, the 1846-O is the first mintmarked silver dollar in United States coinage history, and one of only four in the Liberty Seated series from the New Orleans Mint. The mintage of 59,000 pieces was achieved at the request of bullion depositors in the South, much of the silver coming from worn down Spanish colonial and other foreign coins deposited for recoinage. As with its contemporaries from the Philadelphia Mint, the 1846-O was largely used in the export trade, in this case through the busy port of New Orleans. Most were shipped to Europe, from where some examples returned to the United States in payment for American goods such as cotton. On the other hand, this issue was produced during a decade in which coins of this denomination also saw considerable domestic circulation in the South, especially in the Mississippi River Valley. Indeed, the lower average grade among survivors suggests that the 1846-O saw considerably more commercial use than the Philadelphia Mint silver dollar issues from the 1840s. The 1,000 to 1,250 coins extant for the 1846-O are generally in EF or lower grades, and usually impaired for one reason or another. Locating an attractive About Uncirculated survivor, as here, is a challenging task in today's market, and we anticipate keen bidder interest in this offering. PCGS# 6933. NGC ID: 24YH. Click here for certification details from PCGS. Image with the PCGS TrueView logo is obtained from and is subject to a license agreement with Collectors Universe, Inc. and its divisions PCGS and PSA.