Gift from grandmother to grandson could bring $20,000+

DALLAS, TX – The only serial #1 star note from the Bicentennial $2 series known to exist in private hands will be offered by Heritage Currency Auctions of America in its Central States auction, May 1, at Cincinnati’s Duke Energy Downtown Convention Center.

The newly surfaced note had been hidden away by its owner since 1976, when it was obtained – along with the serial #2 San Francisco District $2 star, which accompanies it in this sale – by the consignor’s grandmother from a Bank of America branch in Oakland, Calif. She went in with the express purpose of obtaining a couple of the newly issued $2 Bicentennial notes for her grandson’s budding coin and currency collection.

The notes were placed in an envelope and forgotten until more than three decades later when that same grandson, for whom they were purchased in the first place, discovered the envelope. Now these pristine notes are going to be offered to the general public and the level of curiosity from the collecting world is expected to be high.

Each of the two notes has one light storage fold, acquired over the years, a minor exception in both instances. Otherwise each note is as pristine and undisturbed as the day they were pulled from the pack of bills at the Bank of America in the Bay area. Each piece is graded Choice About Uncirculated 58 EPQ (Exceptional Paper Quality) by PMG. The pre-sale estimate for the serial number 1 example is $20,000-$30,000 – which could prove to be quite conservative – as only one collector in the world will be able to boast of owning a serial number 1 Bicentennial star deuce when the hammer falls on this lot.

To see the rest of the lots in this auction, read detailed descriptions and download enlargeable hi-res images, go online to www.HA.com/Currency.

The rarity of the 1802 half dime is well known to collectors of United States coins. Only 35 or so pieces are believed known in all grades. Most, of course, are in low grades and David Davis gives a roster of “The Fourteen Worst 1802 Half Dimes” on page 38 of the Logan-McCloskey half dime reference. There are a surprising number of high grade examples also known of this date, the finest of which is the AU50 Granberg coin that was last sold by Heritage in the 1998 FUN Auction.

David Davis’ article is well researched and well worth the time to read, especially if one is interested in bidding on this coin. He has surveyed auction catalogs and found 167 appearances at public auction over a 140-year period, for an average of 1.2 appearances per year. As he points out, the availability of this date has not been uniform. In fact, there were 17 years when only three or four pieces were offered. And there were two nine-year spans, 1894-1903 and 1926-1934, when none were available at auction.

This irregular availability is mirrored in Heritage’s offerings of this date. They have not handled a single coin between 1976 and 1998. That’s one example of this date for approximately every 100,000 auction lots to appear in Heritage auctions.

In Federal Half Dimes 1792-1837, Russ Logan and John McCloskey commented: “The 1802 half dime has not only been recognized as the key date in the early half dime series for well over a century, but it is often described as one of the classic rarities of U.S. numismatics.” It is also considered to be among the 100 greatest U.S. coins by Jeff Garrett and Ron Guth.

The rarity of the 1802 half dime was recognized almost as soon as coin collecting became popular in the late 1850s. The first coin offered at public auction was in the 1859 sale by Edward Cogan of the J.N.T. Levick Collection, but that piece did not sell. The first actual sale of an 1802 half dime was four years later in the Lilliendahl Collection. (more…)

Preliminary figures from show total prices realized of nearly $14 million over the course of the five days of the Baltimore, MD Signature US Coin Auction on March 27-31, 2009, with the number edging ever higher with continued post-Auction buying. The ongoing total prices realized is in line with what we were aiming for in pre-auction preparation.

“I’d say it’s even on the high side of what we had hoped to accomplish with this event,” said Greg Rohan, President of Heritage. “We’ve seen sustained steadiness in the U.S. coin market over the course of the last seven months. When numerous other markets are continuing to sink, or just tread water, coins have continued to be reliable ballast to a large number of portfolios.”

These solid numbers come just a month before Heritage’s official auction of the 2009 CSNS Convention in Cincinnati, OH, an auction that is already featuring the Amon Carter Class III 1804 $1, the most famous coin in all of collecting, as its anchor. Along with that coin, Central States will also feature the Joseph C. Thomas Collection, one of the finest rare coin collections in the world, with more than 750 of the finest examples of a wide variety of exceptional coinage.

“This bodes well for the hobby,” said Rohan. “Going into an event of the size and importance of Central States, it’s important that collectors and consignors alike see that the market is still active and that demand is still strong.”

Leading the Baltimore auction, realizing $322,000, was a 1795 $10 13 Leaves MS63 PCGS. This coin is a fantastic representative of such an historic date. The United States Mint produced gold coins for the first time in 1795, starting with half eagles, and beginning the $10 gold series in September. A modest mintage of 5,583 eagles dated 1795 was achieved during the fiscal year, with deliveries taking place from September 27, 1795 through March 30, 1796. (more…)