Exceptional 1801 JR-2 Dime, AU58

1801 10C AU58 PCGS. CAC. JR-2, R.5. An absolutely gorgeous 1801 JR-2 dime, certainly in the Condition Census, with deep tan surfaces that are accompanied by russet, medium blue, turquoise, and pale green toning. The central obverse and reverse, along with the upper right reverse stars and clouds, show considerable weakness, but all other design features are bold. An amazing coin with wonderful aesthetic appeal for the connoisseur.

Die State. An intermediate die state, with diminished rust on the obverse from die lapping or resurfacing. The reverse is cracked from the border through the right side of F to cloud 8 to star 11, continuing to star 13 and the eagle's head. Another crack begins at the border to the arrow feathers and left claw, continuing into the shield just right of the first vertical stripe and faintly through all the horizontal crossbars. Another crack from the border to the E in AMERICA joins the top leaf, curving to the right shield border, eventually emerging from the tail feathers.

Condition Census. High in the Condition Census, this 1801 JR-2 dime is at worst second finest known, and it may qualify as the finest survivor from those dies. Several other AU examples exist, but this piece is at the high end of the scale.

Appearances. Plated in the James Stack, Sr., and Russell J. Logan collections.

Obverse Die. The same obverse die as 1801 JR-1, but now lapped. The date is closely spaced with both 1's separated from the device. Stars 1 and 7 are equally distant from the curl and L, star 8 is very close to the Y, and star 13 is close to the drapery. All stars are widely spaced with none touching. LIB are closely spaced with BERTY widely spaced. The repunched R and spine from the curl tip are now mostly gone.
State a. Perfect die, may not exist. State b. Severely rusted die. State c. Lapped die.

Reverse Die. Leaf tip below center of C, diagnostic. Stars are arranged with six in the top row, the usual star pattern. Star 4 is usually weak or absent, as it is on this example. Star 12 joins the lower beak and ribbon, but is separated from the upper beak. All letters in the legend are separated, although AME are quite close with A slightly higher than M at its base. A leaf point is merged with the right base of I. The branch has five berries, although the upper outside berry is almost lost in severe localized die rust.
State a. Without die cracks. State b. Cracked from F to cloud and stars, from border to arrow butts, claw, and shield, and through E of AMERICA to the top leaf and shield. State c. The first two cracks of state b join at the eagle's head.

Heritage Commentary. Two 1801 die varieties were coined from a common obverse die and delivered on four different dates during the year. Delivery dates and quantities were: March 16 - 9,260; September 30 - 8,120; December 1 - 14,190; December 26 - 3,070. The two varieties were part of a longer interconnected string of dimes and quarter eagles including six different die marriages dated 1798 to 1801. Some numismatists have suggested that the March 16 delivery was dimes dated 1800. Calendar-year production for 1798 was 27,550 coins, 21,750 for 1800, and 34,640 for 1801. Today, the total number of existing coins is about 1.5% of the mintage. We are unable to further correlate survival with original mintage totals.

Consignor Commentary. In the six weeks from September 22 to November 6, 2002, I dramatically improved the quality of my 1801 JR-2 dimes. In September I purchased the only Uncirculated example that I have ever seen or heard of. Then in November, the Logan coin was auctioned and I added that coin to my collection. I had already owned two Choice AU examples for many years. So I had four examples, quite likely all in the Condition Census. I later sold the two I had owned for many years. In recent years, I thinned out almost all of the duplicates in the collection. But I could never bring myself to part with either of these. One was the finest known and the other had extraordinary eye appeal and had been in Russ Logan's Collection.

Provenance. James A. Stack, Sr. Collection (Stack's, 1/1990), lot 9; Russell J. Logan Collection (Bowers and Merena, 11/2002), lot 2004.
From The Ed Price Collection.(Registry values: P7) (#4471)

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