If it ever reaches the auction room, it will create something of a sensation. -- Moorhead B. Holland of the Peoples Savings and Trust Company of Pittsburgh, executor of the John A. Beck Estate, February 1925.A majestic prize, profoundly lustrous and spectacularly preserved, this is one of the prettiest and finest eagles of this type anywhere. Considering its century-old provenance to one of the most famous cabinets ever formed, its quality is perhaps unsurprising, but it remains extraordinary. Light orange toning gathers at the rims and around some design elements, more profound on the reverse than the obverse. An immense measure of satiny luster brightly swirls over both sides. The devices are heavily frosted and well detailed. The vestiges of planchet preparation run parallel and vertical on both sides, but there is not a significant adjustment mark to be seen. Both obverse and reverse are free of major marks and show a near total absence of the usually encountered hairlines. A few little marks gather beneath star 9, and a very shallow abrasion descends from the corner of Libertys eye. The reverse hides a light abrasion amidst the clouds beneath the space between STATES and OF, and a tiny rim defect dots the I of UNITED. A few small lintmarks are seen, including ones above star 5 and beneath I of UNITED, and a natural lamination is barely visible above the first T of STATES.Both dies are crisp, uncracked, and unclashed. Some very light crumbling has begun at the die edge, at the base of the denticles, above stars 1 and 2. The reverse is lapped from its previous marriage, hollowing UM of UNUM and truncating some clouds, but has not yet clashed.This coin has spent the entire preceding century in just three collections, each legendary for their own reasons. The George H. Earle, Jr. Collection was the most valuable cabinet of American coins ever sold when it went under the hammer in 1912. Offered by Henry Chapman and considered one of the crowning achievements in his career, the Earle sale realized $55,821.63, a record that wasnt broken until Chapmans enormous 1921 John Story Jenks sale. Earle was a connoisseur of both quality and rarity, and many coins from his fine cabinet have been incorporated, decades later, into the D. Brent Pogue Collection. This coin seems to have been acquired from the Earle sale by one of the great auction bidders of his day, John A. Beck, a wealthy Pittsburgher who could be said with more accuracy to have amassed a collection rather than accumulated one. In his ardor to keep other bidders honest on his favorite coin, the 1856 Flying Eagle cent, he acquired over 500 of them, mostly one at a time. Though Beck died in 1924, the first auction of coins from his estate took place more than a half century later. In the January 1975 Beck I sale, 11 1799 eagles were sold, described as "the finest and largest group ever sold at public auction." This piece, the second of the 11, realized far and away the highest price ($6,000), with more typical Uncirculated coins bringing half as much. Acquired for the D. Brent Pogue Collection in 1980, it has remained ever since among the finest date and major variety set of early United States eagles ever formed.As noted in the Bass-Dannreuther book on early United States gold coins, "there are eight Small Star obverse and two Large Star obverse varieties among the 10 different for 1799. This is the most varieties of any early eagle, and only the 1803 has more than six." Of those eight die marriages with small stars on the obverse, nearly all are rare; this is the only one not rated Rarity-5 or higher. While many Mint State examples have been certified, PCGS has never seen a gem. The D. Brent Pogue specimen is tied with one other as finest known.
