1866-S $5 No Motto MS(PCGS#8300)
1866-S $5 No Motto MS (PCGS#8300)
The June 2012 Baltimore Auction
- Auctioneer
- Stack's Bowers
- Lot Number
- 4289
- Grade
- XF45
- Price
- 4,418
- Lot Description
- 1866-S Liberty Half Eagle. No Motto. EF-45 (PCGS). Deep honey gold with warm orange highlights throughout. A modicum of golden frost is retained in the protected areas. Evenly worn but only faintly marked, and choice for the grade as such. One of 9,000 examples of the date struck before the new dies with IN GOD WE TRUST on the reverse arrived at the San Francisco Mint. No doubt much of the mintage saw extensive use in the San Francisco area, as the majority of specimens known today are just VF to EF or so, with very few forays into AU. Indeed, neither PCGS nor NGC has certified an example of the date in Mint State, a true reflection of the date's rarity across the board. For the record, the PCGS website suggests that fewer than 100 examples of the date are known in all grades. The present EF-45 example is not only a top-notch example of a rare and elusive date, but it ranks among the dozen finest grading <em>events </em>listed at PCGS.