1806 Flowing Half Dollar Blog Entry

[Popping Mad]

***note this took me about 4 hours to write... or longer.


http://www.mrbrklyn.com/flowinghair_1806.html



The 1806 or more properly, the 1805/6 coinage of US half dollars ran
into several mintage problems, some of them errors and some of them just
issues of the mint economizing its production. To a degree, these
various die examples were just sloppiness on the part of the mint. Its a
field day for Bust collectors with over 186,000 coins minted and no less
than 23 varieties listed in Walter Breems text. I'm am sure there are
more today.

1806 Half Dollar Bust with Heraldic Eagle and Shield

When acquiring or collecting these coins, it is most helpful to have an
expert in the field as a guild and mentor, and in my case I have a
wonderful relationship with David Kahn, one of the premier Bust Half
experts in the world. Aside from getting a great flowing hair bust in
VF30, this coin has outstanding providence, which makes it that much
more desirable in my mind. This coin came from the Meyer Collection and
is an Overton 125 (Rarity 5) die pair. It has pointed number '6' in
1806, and the stems go through the reverse eagles claw. It is not easy
to explain this without a photograph. Fortunately we have a description
on USA Coin Book If this link dies, as my websites tend to outlive much
of the internet, I have a PDF copy in my coins directory.

The Overton 125 variety is harder to describe. There is a detailed
discussion of the variety at The Early Half Dollars Information Site. It
describes the variety as

Variety Attribution: Obverse-Stars are sharp pointed and close to
milling. Date is 8 1/2 mm. and large, with 6 higher than 180. 1 close to
curl. Spike like segment between star 7 and L, a similar one between L
and I is closer to I. Some specimens begin to show a die crack at base
of 180 and like many of these early halves may or may not show various
clash marks. O-125: Reverse-5 berries all with stems, the two center
ones touch leaves above. Point of leaf close under right base of I. Star
point attached to beak just above point of same. A2 clear of both
feathers and M. A fine die crack from milling joins right side of O in
OF with small lump and extends through clouds into stars.

This is the kind of minute detail that bust experts talk about, and it
is why one really needs an expert on your side when you are in the
market for these coins. I, myself, am not variety crazy, but the Bust
Half groupies dominate this market.

What I do have fascination with, however, is providence. Knowing the
lineage of a coin goes a long way to assuring that the coin has never
been stolen. This is a Meyer collection coin. According to David Kahn,
Charlton "Swampy" Meyer was one of the largest Bust collectors of all
time with a completed 450 coin capped bust Overton variety set. He also
had other complete sets. Formally known as Charlton "Swampy" Meyer Jr,
and he seemed have been closely associated with the dealer Sheridan
Downey, who is still dealing coins today (Feb 2022).

Meyer probably got the moniker of "Swampy" because he lived most of his
life in Louisiana. Another of the important Jewish coin collectors, he
was born on January 6, 1931 and died September 11, 2006, so his life
over laps mine. He was associated with the Louisiana Paper company and
A. G. Edwards a stock broker and analyst. He contributed numismatic
object to the Houston Holocaust museum which had been extensively
written about (Questionable issue : currency of the Holocaust : the
Charlton E. Meyer Jr. and Gloria B. Meyer Collection of the Holocaust
Museum Houston / by Steven Feller ; edited by Stephen T. Johnson ; with
major contributions from Lisa Moellering and Ellen Trachtenberg.). So he
had a full life aside from his perchance to collect great coins, one of
which ended up in my collection.
Flowing Hair 1806 O125 R5 Obverse
Flowing Hair 1806 O125 R5 Reverse

This coin has been particularly hard to photograph and even harder to
photo edit. The purpose of photo editing is to bring out the true look
of a coin, not to improve it. I tend to get the coins details out of the
images, but in this case the coin has an unusual luster (unusual for a
VF30 and the reason I purchased this coin). The shield's horizontal
strips really can show it off when looked at on an angle. And the fields
have real toning. It has a slight peach toning to the fields, and it is
almost like the coin was struck proof like, and then circulated but
retaining the luster.

Making it hard is that the imaging technology is going through a
transformation. The images from the camera are coming out with floating
point 32 bit color, but the viewing and editing software outside of the
Gimp doesn't tranlation 32 floating point bits colors well at all,
especially with the PNG format. I am hoping that the software will all
catch up so I can leverage the full image quality. This problem is true
for all my photographs going forward. I'll probablyget more images up of
this coin in the near future and maybe a video. It has become one of my
favorite coins.

It is worth noting that the Heraldic Eagle is the Seal of the United
States and the design has the phrase "E Pluribus Unum" which on this
coin is either no struck well, or perhaps lost to circulation. But the
arrows and the branches are backwards, with the arrows on the left when
they should be in the right claw. And there was an interesting
discussion on this coin about the nature of the "matted toning",
especially below the date. While this is commonly thought of as being an
indication of artifical toning, or dipping or even counterfeiting, on
these coins, this toning is common. Overall, it is a really lovely coin,
especially in the hand.


https://www.davidkahnrarecoins.com/
https://www.davidkahnrarecoins.com/
https://www.usacoinbook.com/coins/2472/half-dollars/draped-bust/1806-P/pointed-6-stem-through-claw/

http://maibockaddict.com/1806-o-125-r5-draped-bust-half-dollar.shtml
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