United States 1795 dollar KM-17
This specimen was lot 2044 in Stack's Bowers sale of the "The D. Brent Pogue Collection, Part II" (Chicago, September 2015), where it sold for $282,000. The catalog description noted,
"1795 Flowing Hair Silver Dollar. Bowers Borckardt-18, Bolender-7. Rarity-3. Three Leaves. Silver Plug. Mint State-64 (PCGS).
"Curious oval planchet defect at centre of obverse." — Walter Breen, 1956
A final world-class example from these dies, struck on a planchet with a bold circular plug located precisely at the central obverse. Bold cartwheel luster encircles both sides. The obverse displays violet-tinged gray fields, a circle of pale blue inside the stars, and lighter gold and blue at the rims. The reverse is mostly pale violet with peripheral blue, more frosty and lustrous than the obverse. The strike is very sharp, though perhaps not as definitive as others in this collection, with each star showing centers that are sharp but not complete, some softness in the hair detail above Liberty's ear, and an oval flat area on the eagle’s breast, below which some vertically oriented adjustment marks have not been fully struck out.
The denticles are bold and the rims are precisely struck, and both Liberty and the eagle's face show expressive detail. The obverse shows some natural granularity in the middle of the fields. The central plug is easy to see, with much of its borders evident where a small gap exists between the plug and the main planchet around it. The obverse is free of adjustment marks, while the reverse shows some at center and less notable ones at UNI and below the right ribbon end. A couple of minuscule scrapes are seen below the corner of Liberty's eye, and a short scratch is present between the denticles and the top of star 12, issues whose aesthetic impact is nil. The die state is the typical one, before the lapping that marks the second scarcer die state.
Writing in 1907, Samuel Hudson Chapman called this extraordinary example "Uncirculated" with "mint luster" and noted its "rare variety and state." He did not, however, know what to make of the plug, which he clearly detected but called a "faint nick on ear in planchet." The plug is plainly visible, looking much as Chapman described it, on Plate VI of the famous David S. Wilson sale catalog. A half decade later, Walter Breen noticed the plug, and recognized the nature of it, but according to a letter written in 1993 (quoted in Q. David Bowers' Silver Dollars and Trade Dollars of the United States) "dared not use the word 'plug' or 'plugged' in the description lest it frighten off buyers!" He settled for a vague reference to a "curious oval planchet defect at centre of obverse" in the 1956 T. James Clarke sale; when he had the chance to catalog this coin again in 1968, he didn't mention it at all. Interestingly, a profoundly double struck specimen of this variety with a silver plug has been hiding in plain sight for decades, in the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution.
Credit for correctly interpreting the plugged dollars of 1795 goes to Kenneth Bressett, whose research was published in the proceedings of the 1993 Coinage of the America’s Conference on "America’s Silver Dollars." Bressett also found an 1817-dated reference to a similar procedure at the mint in Lima, Peru whereby "the dollar is then put under a screw which has a pointed instrument in the end of it, which is screwed down and pierces a hole in the dollar sufficiently large to receive the pin; then it is placed under another screw with a smooth end, which completely fastens the pin in the coin; they are then passed into another room where they are coined." Similar plugs, used to enhance the weight of coins that had been clipped, are seen in silver coins from Latin American mints dating to the late 17th century.
This dollar has always been desirable as beautifully toned, and well preserved. Thanks to numismatic researchers like Breen and Bressett, the unusual silver-plug production is now appreciated as something very special, as well as very rare. It is perhaps the ultimate testimony to the excellence of the D. Brent Pogue Collection that such an important coin is the third finest example of this die variety present in this collection. In any other context, a 1795 dollar such as this would be a singular highlight.
Publications: Bowers, Q. David. Silver Dollars & Trade Dollars of the United States: A Complete Encyclopedia, 1993, p. 204. Bowers, Q. David. The Encyclopedia of United States Silver Dollars 1794-1804, 2013, p. 90.
Provenance: Richard Winsor Collection; Henry and Samuel Hudson Chapman's sale of the Richard Winsor Collection, December 1895, lot 388; David S. Wilson Collection; Samuel Hudson Chapman's sale of the David S. Wilson Collection, March 1907, lot 366; T. James Clarke Collection; New Netherlands Coin Company's 48th sale, November 1956, lot 612; Jacque C. (Mrs. Alfred) Ostheimer; Lester Merkin's sale of September 1968, lot 320; Stack's sale of October 1986, lot 102; Stack's sale of the Hain Family Collection, January 2002, lot 1500."
The Flowing Hair silver dollar was struck in small numbers 1794-95 and has always been rare. This variety with the silver plug in the center is the rarest of the 1795 varieties.
Recorded mintage: 160,295 plus 42,738 of the Draped Bust.
Specification: 26.96 g, .892 fine silver, .773 troy oz ASW, lettered edge.
Catalog reference: KM 17.
- Breen, Walter H., Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of U. S. and Colonial Coins, New York: Doubleday, 1987.
- Michael, Thomas, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1701-1800, 7th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2016.
- Yeoman, R. S., and Kenneth Bressett (ed.), A Guide Book of United States Coins, 65th Ed., Atlanta, GA: Whitman Publishing, 2011.
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