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Choice Proof 1842 Half Dollar F.C.C. Boyd Specimen 1842 Half Dollar Small Date, Large Letters. WB-1

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:10.00 USD Estimated At:NA
Choice Proof 1842 Half Dollar F.C.C. Boyd Specimen  1842 Half Dollar Small Date, Large Letters. WB-1
SOLD
30,000.00USD+ (6,000.00) buyer's premium + applicable fees & taxes.
This item SOLD at 2018 Mar 08 @ 20:23UTC-6 : CST/MDT
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Choice Proof 1842 Half Dollar
F.C.C. Boyd Specimen
1842 Half Dollar Small Date, Large Letters. WB-101. Rarity-7. Proof-64 PCGS. A rare prize within the Liberty Seated half dollar series, this early Proof is at once aesthetically appealing and physically sound. The strike is sharp and the otherwise reflective steel-gray surfaces shine boldly forth with gold, silver, and royal blue iridescence in a bright light; the writer prefers 100 watts.


The present rarity is a survivor - one of perhaps eight or so pieces all told - from an unknown but undoubtedly small mintage. Imagine if every serious collector of U.S. coins in 1842 stepped forward and applied to, or at, the Philadelphia Mint for a Proof half dollar – or a complete set! - of the date; we imagine the figure probably wouldn’t have exceeded a dozen pieces by very many, if at all. (We can only speculate, of course, as there is nothing written in stone, but speculation is one of the endearing attractions of numismatics – as long, that is, as one’s speculation doesn’t suddenly become fact.) Of the surviving examples, seven of which were definitively listed in the Heritage sale noted below, the present coin appears to be the third finest of those in private hands. There is an 1842 Proof Small Date half dollar in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Coin Collection, and another in the American Numismatic Society’s holdings; both coins will no doubt remain out of the hands of collectors in perpetuity, and both limit the number of available specimens even further.


The present Choice Proof example is traced back to the F.C.C. Boyd Collection, see below, an important pedigree that establishes a chain well over 70 years in length, to which the successful bidder here will add yet another name. Beginning in 1946, the present piece has spent decades in each succeeding collection it entered – first for 19 years, then for 40 years, and then for seven years before becoming available to a new generation of collectors. It has been a lucky seven years since this specimen’s last public auction appearance, and we’re certain a new audience of aficionados will jump at the opportunity to gather this rarity into the fold.
PCGS Population: 3; none finer; 1 of the 3 is designated “+” by PCGS.
From Heritage’s Signature Sale of January, 2012, lot 3246; formerly F.C.C. Boyd; Numismatic Gallery’s World’s Greatest Collection, August, 1945, lot 255; Numismatic Gallery’s ANA Sale of the Adolph Friedman Collection, August, 1946, lot 816; Stack’s Public Auction Sale, March 1965, lot 443; David Lawrence’s sale of the Richmond Collection, Part III, March, 2005, lot 1787.
PCGS #6386




PCGS Coin Facts