1802/1 Draped Bust Silver Dollar. BB-232, B-4. Rarity-4. Narrow Date. MS-62 (PCGS). Boasting spectacular originality and visual appeal, this coin likely looks much the same today as when the hammer fell in our (Stacks) Davis-Graves Collection sale of 1954. The toning is pearlescent gray, ranging from silvery to deep violet and amber. The luster is intense and unbroken, cartwheeling around both sides but slightly reflective on the reverse. Those marks that are present are the sort likely imbued before this coin left the Mint, and none are distracting when the coin is viewed in hand. The strike is very good, perhaps not full on every star or the eagles tail, but perfectly crisp most everywhere else. The overdate aspect is easy to see with the naked eye, as is the die crack or injury that crosses Libertys chest, marking this as the typically encountered die state, BB Die State II.<p>The story of young Harvey Stacks first encounter with the George L. Davis Collection reads like a storyline from the Indiana Jones franchise. After several potential buyers bid for the collection, Stacks was notified that its bid had been accepted. Harvey was dispatched from New York (where Stacks had just moved their location to the now-famous 57th Street location) to Lawrence, Massachusetts, a mill town just south of the New Hampshire state line. He discovered that the address he had been given was the abandoned factory of the Davis and Furber Machine Company, which "ran several large city blocks in each direction" in North Andover, across the Merrimack River. He found the caretaker to the property and was escorted through the empty structure to "an office at the end of the building, larger than a tennis court, set with a desk for the president at one end, various bookshelves, a huge conference table, and a large cabinet with beautifully carved doors. It was a splendid room, still furnished and maintained, yet not used for several years since the company had moved away."<p>The cabinet contained the George L. Davis Collection, formed by the founder of the Davis and Furber Machine Company in the 1870s to 1880s and left intact since his death in 1891. Though he was primarily a customer of Philadelphia coin dealer John Haseltine, Davis position as the president of the local Bay State National Bank may have allowed him to procure coins locally as well. Davis was the family historian and a community leader, writing a book about his longstanding New England roots and serving two terms in the Massachusetts Senate. His will specified that "all the personal property situated in and upon my said homestead" including "household furniture, books, pictures, plate, relics, coins, musical instruments, horses, carriage, stock, tools" and more would be left to his son George G. Davis, his daughter Alice R. Sack, and the children of his deceased daughter Mary W. Peck. The coins appear to have been sold by his grandchildren, having been in the family for no less than 70 years and, for many coins, even longer.<p>The top-ranked 1802 BB-232 dollar in the Bowers silver dollar Encyclopedia was cited from Stacks December 1984 sale, a catalog best known for containing duplicate large cents from Floyd Starr. That piece was later resold in Heritages April 2008 sale of the Queller Family dollars, and by us again in October 2015, in both instances graded MS-63 by NGC. PCGS has also certified an MS-62+ of this variety, the Amon G. Carter specimen. The Davis-Graves specimen offered here is the CC#3 coin in the Winter 2022 revision to Stephen J. Herrmans AMBPR for early dollars. Every collector seeks something different in an ideal specimen, but for those seeking originality and natural eye appeal along with condition rarity, its hard to conjure a more perfect coin. PCGS# 40092. NGC ID: 24XC. From the George Schwenk Collection. Earlier ex George L. Davis Collection, before 1891; George L. Davis estate, December 1891; Stacks, en bloc, by sale, 1953; our (Stacks) sale of the Davis-Graves Collection, April 1954, lot 1326; Heritages ANA Signature Auction of March 2010, lot 1204; our (in conjunction with Sothebys) sale of the D. Brent Pogue Collection, Part V, April 2017, lot 5039; Legend Rare Coin Auctions sale of the Dale Friend Collection, Part I, April 2022 Regency Auction 51, lot 45.
