1797 $1 9x7 Stars, Large Letters MS(PCGS#6863)

November 2025 Showcase Auction U.S. Coins

Auctioneer

Stack's Bowers

Lot Number

2107

Grade

XF40

Price

15,600

Lot Description

BB Die State IV, Salyards Die State III/I. This lovely piece offers richly original toning in warm lavender and steel gray on impressively smooth surfaces. The strike is well centered and predominantly bold, just a tad soft in the centers, and to no great detriment in a lightly circulated Draped Bust, Small Eagle dollar at the EF-40 level.<p>Bowers-Borckardt 73 is the sole die marriage associated with the Stars 9x7, Large Letters <em>Guide Book</em> variety of the 1797 silver dollar, and it is the median scarcity among the three known die pairings of the issue. Plentiful in an absolute sense, at least by early dollar standards, Harry E. Salyards (2022) estimates that 500 to 850 BB-73 dollars are extant in all grades. With most survivors of this die pairing as a whole grading no finer than VF, the conditionally challenging nature of the BB-73 dollar comes to the fore at the EF level. The present example is among the finer certified available to today's numismatists.