1818 25C B-7 MS(PCGS#38948)

1818 25C B-7 MS (PCGS#38948)

June 2025 Showcase Auction U.S. Coins

Lot Description: Tompkins Die Stage 1/2, Rea et al. Die State a. A highly significant example of this scarce Browning number, earlier from our (Bowers and Merena's) November 1990 sale, where it was described as "Possibly the Finest Known" and cataloged, in part, as:<p><em>A lovely lustrous example having just a faint trace of friction on the high points. The central areas exhibit light champagne toning which deepens to a warm golden shade at the rims.</em><p>This coin is raked CC#2 in the 2010 Rea-Peterson-Karoleff-Kovach census, after a coin graded "60" in our (Stack's) sale of May 1951, lot 416. Of that coin, however, the authors state, "No picture, cannot verify." Given the question marks hanging over that coin with regard to both its attribution and grade, the 2008 Tompkins census omits it entirely and, instead, ranks the Reiver-NorthEast Collection specimen offered here as CC#1 for the 1818 Browning-7 variety. Either way, this is one of the very finest example of the attribution known, and it is worthy of the strongest bids, as such. A small, faint planchet drift mark (as made) in the reverse field between the eagle's left wing tip and the arrows serves as a useful identifier for provenance purposes.