Rare American Coins and the Flowing Hair Silver Dollar
Flowing hair silver dollars seem to have little collector
interest compared to the later varieties. There are very few experts in this
area of coin collecting.
Flowing hair dollars are very scarce compared to Morgan
& Peace dollars, and yet they are reasonable priced for their scarcity.
They have an attractive design and are far less standardized than Morgan or
Peace dollars. They also have the advantage of far less price volatility than
Morgan or Peace dollars.
The Mint Act of 1792 provided for the coinage of silver
dollars to be a par with Mexican and Spanish dollars. They were to weigh 416
grains. Eventually the weight was adjusted to 412.5 grains of 90% silver before
silver dollars were actually produced in 1794.
A total of 1758, 1794 silver dollars were struck and sent to
New England. They appeared to be weakly struck. But the strike wasn't the
biggest problem. After only a few coins were struck, the dies became
misaligned. So the dies were no longer parallel to each other.
That means the left side of 1794 dollars is almost always
weak. Typical of first year of issue coinage, an abnormally high percentage
were saved as keepsakes. Even at that, there are only 180 or so pieces known to
exist. The majority of them grade only fair to very good, with only a dozen
known MS examples.
1794 dollars are difficult to properly grade. In addition to
striking problems, many of the coins show heavy, or more-than-usual adjustment
marks. Many existing 1794 pieces have been repaired, by drilling and plugging,
or damaged when someone's initials were engraved in the coin sometime early in
its life.
These problem coins won't be graded by grading services and
should be avoided altogether by collectors. Another common negative feature
exists with these coins. It is the attempted strengthening of hair detail.
Hair strengthening can be detected by looking at the overall
quality of the coin. If the coin has generally poor detail, but the hair detail
looks strong, it's a sign of tampering. Hair detail wasn't strong to begin
with, and was the first area to wear in circulation.
The much more obtainable Flowing Hair Liberty Dollar is the
1975 with its mintage of 160,295. They are often weakly struck at the centers
and will likely lack detail on the eagle's breast feathers and wing tops.
Adjustment file marks are common on these coins as well. By
October of 1795, the Draped Bust design had been adopted, with 42,738 examples
produced. Like the 1921 silver dollar series, this year is fun to have an
example of each of the dollars minted that year.
I must apologize for using a politically incorrect term in
this article. I mentioned "problem coins" a couple of times. I really
meant to say "challenged coins". Please forgive my oversight.
To discover more about coins: collecting issues, money
management, investing in the rare and bullion coin market, and much more, I
invite you to visit http://www.heritagecoingallery.com for videos and free
tips on buying coins at the best prices.
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