1838 $5 MS(PCGS#8176)

Summer 2025 Global Showcase Auction U.S. Coins

Commissaire-priseur

Stack's Bowers

Numéro du lot

3307

Grade

MS65

Prix

90 000

Description du lot

An outstanding example of both the type and issue that deserves the utmost attention from advanced gold enthusiasts. An exacting strike has imparted razor sharp to full definition to virtually all design features. The surfaces glow with deep orange-gold color that is enhanced by pinkish-rose patina, the entire package wrapped in luxurious satin to softly frosted luster. Blessed with stunning aesthetic appeal, this coin offers even the perfectionist little to dislike. Numismatic perfection is, aside from coins made in modern times for collectors, asymptotic, an ideal more than a grade, so scrutiny will find the single tiny, noncontiguous reeding mark high on Liberty's cheekbone, behind the nose, that extends lightly to the rear of the eye. However, even a lifetime of study will turn up little else, leaving this as the most useful identifier for provenance purposes. The quality of this coin is exceptional, as the assigned grade would suggest, and the eye appeal is equally strong.<p>The (marginally) more common attribution of the issue, HM-2 accounts for slightly more than half of extant 1838 half eagles, and approximately two-thirds of Mint State survivors. The finest known is an extraordinary Ultra Gem in the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution that Daryl J. Haynor grades MS-68 in his 2020 reference <em>United States Classic Gold Coins of 1834 to 1839</em>. This is followed in the author's Condition Census by his own Virginian Collection specimen, ex D. Brent Pogue, in PCGS MS-66 that realized $264,000 in our Summer 2022 Global Showcase Auction, then a second D. Brent Pogue coin, in PCGS MS-65+, that we also had the privilege of bringing to auction in May 2016. CC#4 for the 1838 HM-2 dies is the present Gem in PCGS MS-65, a coin whose inclusion will define the significance of any gold collection.