1799 Draped Bust Dollar

The interesting rare dollar was get out a couple days ago. Its a 1799 Draped Bust Dollar with steel-gray patina over exceptionally clean surfaces. Winning bid: US $6,290.00.

Coin description:

1799 DRAPED BUST DOLLARS NGC AU53
Bolender 13, with irregular date, 13 stars in arc pattern. Breen calls ‘very rare’ & indicates that ‘EF may be finest.’ Handsome uniform steel-gray patina over exceptionally clean surfaces. Just slight rubbing on high points.

“Draped Bust” was the name given to a design of United States coins. It appeared on much of the regular-issue copper and silver United States coinage from 1795-1808. The denominations that featured the Draped Bust design included the half cent (1800-1808), large cent (1796-1807), half dime (1796-1805), dime (1796-1807), quarter (1796, 1804-1807), half dollar (1796-1807) and silver dollar (1795-1804). Gold coins did not carry this design.

The Greatest 100 U.S. Coins selected the 1804 silver dollar as the number one coin. It bears a heraldic eagle on the reverse and the price is prohibitive. Eight were minted in 1834 (Class I) and the rest minted in 1858 (Class II). The 1802 Half Dime ranks number 61. Only 3,000 were minted and the vast majority of these were either lost, melted or wore out. Most 1802 half dimes that do exist are in extremely poor condition. The 1797 Half Dollar (ranked 68)has the “small eagle” design. This design is rare due to the very low mintage and the inferior equipment and procedures. Less than 3,000 were minted. It’s companion, the even rarer 1796 half dollar (ranked 72) had a mintage of only 934. The pair constitute the sole mintage of the half dollar “small eagle” design. One is required for a complete Type Set, thus there are always more buyers than sellers. The 1796 quarter (seen above) ranked 71. It is also the “small eagle” design and is the only representative in this denomination of that design. Since it too is required for a complete Type Set, its price continues to rise. Only 6,000 quarters were minted that year. By comparison, the Tennessee State Quarter, one of five struck in 2002, had a mintage of 650,000,000. The mintage of all state quarters in 2002 was over 3 billion.)