A rarity for date and type collectors.From our August 2004 Allison Park sale, where we described this piece with the following words: Rich toning on deeply reflective surfaces is dominated by golden tones on the obverse with pale blue around the stars and occasional highlights of orange and green, while the reverse is a more mottled pastiche of the same tones with rich rose and violet intermingled. A remarkably struck example, with crystal clear detail on the eagles head and proper delineation of most breast feathers, good star detail, and nicely rendered hair. Some faint adjustment marks are visible, common to most specimens of the issue, with some lines near the date under the truncation of the bust and another batch behind Libertys head in the vicinity of stars 7 through 9. Other lighter areas of adjustment appear elsewhere on the obverse with no impact on the impressive visual appeal. Struck from a late die state with lower obverse nearly shattered, showing a faint crack from the hair curl on neck descending and joining to a heavy break, a die failure that joins stars 13 through 15 to the bust and joins the rim in two places. A few light flyspecks are seen in the right obverse field and at the second S in STATES, two tiny parallel nicks inside star 14, some other minor handling marks. It is worth noting that while two superb gem specimens of the 1797 half dollar are known, no 1796 half dollar has been graded higher than MS-64 by either service, and some show very heavy adjustment marks or other notable flaws even when in high grade.Today this coin looks the same, still showing its especially colorful toning and pleasing reflectivity well. The denticles are doubled around nearly the entire obverse circumference, as well as at the left side of the reverse. The strike is not far removed from that seen on the Specimen-63 in the previous lot; in fact, it matches it most everywhere but for a small area of softness in the hair off Libertys forehead. The reverse strike is only minimally softer on the eagle if comparing the fine details of this coin and the previous, though the color contrast makes the softness appear perhaps greater than it is. Indeed, the present coin has reflectivity in its obverse fields that is even more pronounced than the reflectivity found on the Specimen in the previous lot.Just 3,918 half dollars were struck of this design type, representing the mintages of 1796 and 1797. The typical 5-6% survival rate of these coins would amount to somewhere around 200 specimens extant in all grades, which holds up with contemporary population estimates. The vast majority of known 1796 and 1797 half dollars are well worn, but such is the demand from type collectors that even nearly slick examples and ones with heavy damage bring tens of thousands of dollars. Though the preponderance of survivors are in low grades, a small number of Mint State examples are known, perhaps as many as 10 from the 1796 issue. PCGS has certified just six examples in Mint State for the entire date, combining both the 15 Star and 16 Star obverses, the only two varieties known. The 15 Star obverse type comes from the short-lived plan to place one star on the obverse for each state in the Union. Abandoned after the 1796 statehood of Tennessee, when obverses of silver coins were growing untenably crowded, the 15 Star issue would represent the statehood of Kentucky. The half dollar issues of 1794 and 1795 all feature 15 stars. After attempting to make a 16 Star obverse die later in 1796 to mark the entry of Tennessee, the 1797 half dollars returned, anachronistically, to the 15 Star arrangement, possibly because that die had been made in 1796 but just awaited the placement of the date. After this Small Eagle type, all future half dollars would include just 13 obverse stars, representing the original states.
