1801 $1 BB-211 MS(PCGS#40083)

1801 $1 BB-211 MS (PCGS#40083)

November 2025 Showcase Auction U.S. Coins

Losbeschreibung: BB Die State III. A warmly and evenly toned piece with overall bold strike detail and ample remnants of original mint frost. The surfaces are uncommonly well composed, showing little signs of circulation, and no significant blemishes.<p>By 1801, the value of the silver contained in a silver dollar was now $1.03, making the coins targets for speculation and melting, leading to a slowdown in the production of the denomination. While the official Mint records show that 54,545 silver dollars were struck during calendar year 1801, these records do not specify the date of the coins. Q. David Bowers (2013) asserts that the mintage from 1801-dated dies is only 35,000 or so coins. Struck using two obverse and four reverse dies, there are a total of four known die marriages for this issue, of which only BB-211 appears to have actually been struck in 1801; the rest were likely produced the following year. The BB-211 die pair - often referred to as the Wide Date - is the most available of the four varieties. Because many specimens were either shipped abroad or melted down, this issue is scarcer than some of the earlier dates. Bowers estimates that between 1,800 and 3,500 1801 dollars survive from all die pairings, of which less than one-tenth may be found at the AU level or above. This is a particularly significant BB-211, the 2013 Bowers plate coin, and just outside of Condition Census for the variety.