1796 Silver Dollar Rarity Discovered by Heritage Third Known B-6, BB-64 To Be Sold in June Long Beach Auction

Dallas, Texas: The third-known example of an incredibly rare silver dollar has been discovered by the catalogers at Heritage Numismatic Auctions. The coin, a 1796 dollar with Small Date, Large Letters (B-6, BB-64) in Die State III, will be sold in Heritage's official Signature Sale at the June Long Beach Coin Expo, June 8-10.

According to Mark Van Winkle, Chief Cataloger at Heritage Numismatic Auctions, "One specimen is in the collection of the well-known early die variety specialist, Jules Reiver. The pedigree of the Reiver example is listed in Bowers' dollar book as:

1. Ex: K.P. Austin of Salisbury, Maryland; A.J. Ostheimer, 3rd Collection; 1975 ANA Sale (Superior), lot 823; then into the collection of Jules Reiver.' Bowers also noted the possible existence of a second coin:

The newly-discovered piece arrived at Heritage as part of a large consignment of well-circulated coins, and was unattributed. "Once we attributed it as a B-6, continued Van Winkle, "and confirmed that with several of the numismatists on staff, I called Jules Reiver, who was understandably eager to examine the coin. We shipped the coin to him, and the following day received an excited phone call confirming the coin was indeed a B-6, and asking plenty of questions. Where did it come from? Who owned it? Whose collection had it been in? When was the auction? Unfortunately, we can only provide some of those answers."

The newly discovered example is graded Fine 12, but it is not without its share of problems - the coin is cleaned, holed, and plugged. According to HNAI Director Bob Korver, "Early Dollar specialists will not be alarmed by these problems in the slightest, especially considering that Reiver confirmed that this 'is a nice coin and in better condition than mine,' although the two coins appear virtually identical in grade.

"A word about the possible pedigree of this coin may be in order," noted Korver. "The coin came out of an inherited collection formed over two generations, which the anonymous consignor has named the Piedmont Collection. With no purchase records, we simply will never know if this is a specimen previously rumored to exist, although we assume it is. However, we conclude that awareness of its rarity was lost some decades ago. The U.S. portion of the collection contains many coins with similar condition problems, and there were no equivalent rarities. We think the previous owner purchased this coin because its problems made it affordable, and not due to its rarity."

"The die crack on the reverse is fascinating," concluded Van Winkle. "There are few coins in U.S. numismatics that feature such a massive, terminal crack. As a result, the design elements are physically located on separate planes from each other, which results in a unique left/right, low grade/high grade, VG/VF grade split on each side of the crack. This crack unquestionably caused the retirement of this reverse die, if not the actual shattering. The obverse die had been used on an earlier pairing, but after the crack opened on the reverse, no other dollars were struck from this obverse either."

High resolution photographs of the B-6, BB-64 rarity are currently available on the Heritage website at http://www.heritagecoin.com in the Featured Collections area. The catalog will be posted on the website around May 25th; potential bidders may pre-register online at any time, and bidding instructions will be posted with the auction. For details about consigning to the next Heritage sale, please contact the Heritage Consignor Hotline (1-800-872-6467 Ext. 222) or bids@heritagecoin.com.