1795 $1 Flowing Hair, BB-27 MS(PCGS#39977)

December 2025 Showcase Auction - The James A. Stack, Sr. Collection Part I

Auctioneer

Stack's Bowers

Lot Number

20002

Grade

MS64

Price

600 000

Lot Description

A "perfect uncirculated specimen" in the estimation of B. Max Mehl, the last numismatist to catalog this coin nearly eight decades ago. Three characteristics of this coin jump to the fore with even the most casual examination. First is this coin's exceptional, unbroken mint luster, which cartwheels around both sides rapidly and unblemished. Second is this coin's superb color, and third is an exquisite strike that is ideally centered and magnificently bold. We could say no more about this spectacular piece, and its buyer would walk away without an iota of disappointment. <p><p>In 1948, B. Max Mehl described this coin as follows: "Small head. Stars distant from point of bust and curl. Three leaves under wings on reverse. Perfect uncirculated specimen. Sharp with full brilliant mint luster. Every star filled. Variety with tiny die break back of head. Light short hair-line on cheek, hardly noticeable. A beautiful coin. Very rare and valuable. Record $137.50 for an equal specimen."<p><p>While we have no doubt this coin was already beautifully toned when Mehl saw it, today it shows astonishingly thorough and attractive pastel blue over most of the obverse, relenting within some interstices to allow sedate frosty violet to emerge. The color is beautiful across the obverse, adding vigor and depth to the frosty, lustrous surfaces. On the reverse, intense blue and violet tones define the center and right side, while frosty brilliance dominates the left periphery. The overall aesthetic impact of this coloration is unsurpassable, with the added benefit of being natural and offering superb originality.<p><p>While this variety of 1795 dollar usually comes pretty well struck, rarely does it appear this well centered, with denticles of nearly identical relief and sharpness framing both sides with picture-perfect effect and seeming careful intentionality. The effect is similar to a canvas bordered in hand-carved mahogany, bringing the devices of Liberty and her eagle counterpart into dramatic central focus.<p><p>As this lofty grade suggests, the fields are pristine, close to immaculate on both sides, with only the most superficial evidence of handling and some truly subtle hairlines found under well-lit magnified scrutiny. We see a light abrasion left of O in OF atop the reverse and a reeding mark at the right ribbon end, along with the horizontal line low on Liberty's cheek near her jaw. This appears to us more likely to be a residual struck-through from a piece of lint trapped in the deepest recess of the die rather than a scratch or post-striking flaw. A light scrape in Liberty's hair, within the tresses below her crown, is well hidden enough that we missed it the first several times we looked at this coin - and we do this for a living. The overall aesthetic impression is not only of a coin deserving of a much higher grade, but of a dreamy ideal concept of this issue, with the sort of color, luster, and intense visual appeal a collector may imagine, but never actually encounter. If this were an Eisenhower dollar, its eye appeal would make it a target of the most exclusive connoisseur-quality cabinets ever formed. As a Flowing Hair dollar, struck at our first mint within months of this nation's first attempts at silver coinage, it is a coin apart, an extraordinary relic, and one of the very finest survivors of this date or variety we've ever seen.<p><p>The finest known 1795 3 Leaves dollar is the Catherine Bullowa - Pogue coin, a PCGS MS-66 that brought $822,500 in our Pogue II sale a decade ago. It is the sole 1795 3 Leaves dollar (aside from the Lord St. Oswald - Pogue Silver Plug dollar) graded higher than MS-64+ by PCGS. We sold an example from these dies (BB-27) graded NGC MS-64 in our February 2025 sale for $204,000. Before that, we had not offered a 1795 BB-27 in MS-64 or finer since we sold an NGC MS-65 in our (American Numismatic Rarities') sale of the Haig Koshkarian Collection for $264,500 in March 2004. This piece's quality makes it a generational opportunity, and its provenance - and absence from the market for some 75 years - makes the chance to own it something more like once in a lifetime.