Nothing wrong with that! But it's a Big Coin too. Apparently Martin Logies does a good and convincing job in his book asserting that this Silver Plug 1794 Specimen dollar was the first ever struck by the U.S. Mint of the 1,758 net minted. I haven't read the book but have been meaning to. Best Regards, :hail: George
How would one go about determining that this coin was the first minted? The only way I can think of would be that the first one off the press was given to someone of importance. I guess this topic is covered in the book you are refering to, giorgio11?
Its a big coin that lives in a fantasy world. Even if i had 10 million to spend on that, I dont think i would. I wonder how he tracked it down to being the first coin struck
That's what I inferred from the Legend e-mail I got this morning about their purchase. Here's the quote from Legend: "We would like to thank the consignor, Martin Logies, for his tireless efforts in documenting the characteristics of this coin and every other 1794 dollar that was struck after it. His fantastic research into every known coin of the type and his book on the subject convinced us that this First Struck dollar is truly a National Treasure. Congratulations to him on a world’s record price realized." Another possible way to determine first strike status, perhaps, is the presence/absence of the silver plugs and/or die state evidence. Perhaps something happened on the first strike of the dies that affected/appears on all subsequent coins? I'm just guessing here because, again, I haven't read Mr. Logies' work. Best Regards, :hail: George Ah: As I suspected, from the Stacks Bowers catalog, partial quote: "Die State: This is the earliest die state seen, a perfect die state match to the copper pattern 1794 Dollar (Judd-19) now at the Smithsonian--which is believed to have been struck first to test the dies and coining press. The definition of Die State I includes notable differences that are seen on the third curl up from the bottom of Liberty's hair, which is longer and more defined here than on any subsequent specimen reported. The copper pattern and the present coin are the only two known from this die state. Die State II coins show considerable evidence of die clashing, later states have the clashing lapped off, weakening this curl and other devices a bit further. Later die states also show that the dies were not perfectly aligned, hence the left side of the struck coins is always weakly struck compared to the strike definition on the right side. Of the approximately 135 1794 silver dollars known, all but this example show evidence of clashing or die lapping designated as Die State II or higher, ..."
Yeah, I would guess that between die state, the fact its labeled a specimen strike, and things like that why they believe it was the first coin struck.
