1916 50C Walking Liberty Half Dollar, Judd-1991, Formerly Judd-1798, Pollock-2056, High R.7, PR63 PCGS....

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Remarkable 1916 Walking Liberty Half Dollar Pattern
Judd-1991, PR63, High R.7, Tied for Finest Certified

1916 50C Walking Liberty Half Dollar, Judd-1991, Formerly Judd-1798, Pollock-2056, High R.7, PR63 PCGS. Silver, reeded edge. Struck in the matte proof format favored by mint officials of the era, this silver-gray specimen is unmarked and best identified by a small number of short mint-made lintmarks on Liberty's skirt. Fully struck, Liberty's head and branch hand have definition uncommon to the eventual business strikes of the modified type.
Judd-1991 is believed to be the earliest among the six varieties of pattern 1916 Walking Liberty half dollars, per recent research by Roger Burdette. The two major devices are similar to their adopted counterparts but are somewhat smaller in scale. The date, IN GOD WE TRUST, and the motto are all in thin, delicate type. HALF DOLLAR is on the upper reverse instead of the reverse exergue, and E PLURIBUS UNUM is on the lower reverse instead of its usual position above the pine sapling. Unlike Judd-1992, LIBERTY is not fixed above the motto, but is distributed across the upper obverse border. No AW monogram is present. Burdette notes in Renaissance of American Coinage 1916-1921 that the "first coins struck had normal fields, then the dies were polished to create a 'burnished' or polished appearance." This appears to be from the first coins struck, with silvery, mattelike surfaces that show no evidence of burnishing.
Only four examples of Judd-1991 are currently known. Saul Teichman enumerates the pedigrees of the known pieces on the www.uspatterns.com website thusly:
1. Smithsonian.
2. Farouk?; William Mitkoff; sold to Pryor on 4/1974; James Bennett Pryor Collection (Bowers and Merena, 1/1996), lot 330, PCGS PR61.
3. Farouk Palace Sale (Sotheby & Co., 2/1954), part of lot 2028; Superior (10/1990), lot 1889; Baltimore '93 Auction (Superior, 7/1993), lot 470, PCGS PR63.
4. The present piece. Robert Marks Collection, Part II (American Auction Association, 11/1972), lot 1081; Austin Collection (Bowers and Ruddy, 6/1974), lot 1113; Morris Evans Collection (Bowers and Merena, 8/1998), lot 2101; Americana Sale (Stack's, 1/2004), lot 3552.
Since the Smithsonian example is presumably permanently impounded, only three pieces are available to collectors, a population identical to the famous 1913 Liberty nickel. This remarkable opportunity to acquire one of the two finest certified pieces should have dual appeal to both pattern specialists and Walking Liberty half dollar collectors.
From The Madison Collection.

Coin Index Numbers: (NGC ID# 2AMW, PCGS# 62295, Greysheet# 15237)

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