1838 $1 J-84, Gobrecht Restrike PR(PCGS#11352)

June 2026 Showcase Auction U.S. Coins

Auctioneer

Stack's Bowers

Lot Number

2163

Grade

PR63

Price

54,900

Lot Description

Korein-18. 411.7 grains. Liberty's head is opposite the letter N in ONE. Lightly toned, especially around the peripheries, both sides are enhanced by iridescent secondary toning in powder blue, antique gold and coppery hues that are more pronounced on the reverse. Nice reflectivity remains in the fields, helping to confirm the Proof strike. All details are needle sharp, as well, and the in-hand appearance is smooth apart from light hairlines that account for the Proof-63 grade from PCGS. A significant rarity that is just right for an advanced silver dollar cabinet.<p>For the collector assembling a complete date set of Gobrecht dollars, the 1838 will likely prove to be the most challenging to acquire. While traditional numismatic wisdom states that a small number of originals were struck that year in Die Alignment I, modern scholarship has discounted this theory. In fact, no Die Alignment I examples of this date are known to exist. The website <em>gobrechtdollars.com</em> contains the most in-depth and up-to-date scholarship on this series, the authors of which (Craig Sholley and John W. Dannreuther) have confirmed that only two original 1838 Gobrecht dollars are known to exist: the Mint Cabinet-Smithsonian Institution specimen in Die Alignment IV and the Eliasberg-ANS coin in Die Alignment III. Exactly when those coins were struck is not known, but it was sometime after July 1838.<p>Obviously, original 1838 Gobrecht dollars were exceedingly rare in their time, and it is likely that they were unknown outside of a small circle of Mint and other government officials. With the growth of numismatics in the United States during the late 1850s, demand for rare early issues soon reached a level where the Mint saw an opportunity to provide such coins to collectors for its own benefit. Indeed, the earliest restrikes of the 1838 Gobrecht dollar were made ca. June 1859 to 1863, most of which were used by Mint Director James Ross Snowden to trade for Washingtonia for the Mint Cabinet. These are the Early State Restrikes, per Sholley and Dannreuther. Two additional striking periods followed: Middle State Restrikes ca. 1867 to 1869, and Late State Restrikes ca. 1873 to 1874. The final two striking periods are attributed to Henry Richard Linderman, who served two non-consecutive terms as mint director from April 1867 to May 1869 and April 1873 to December 1878. The Linderman era is widely known for having spawned large numbers of restrikes, novodels, so-called patterns and fantasy pieces that were made expressly for distribution to collectors.<p>The 1838 Gobrecht dollar offered here dates to Linderman's second term as mint director. It is a Late State Restrike, the obverse heavily polished with the top of the rocky base nearly gone in the area of the ribbon junction. On the reverse, the area of granularity in the field above the letters TA in STATES and the "die line" (actually a light crack) slanting down to the right above the letter T in UNITED have been reduced/weakened by die polishing.