Always buy the best that you can afford. Ive always tried to adhere to that. -- John Jay Pittman, 1988.Superb old toning in auburn, dark rose, and olive crosses deep silver surfaces. The obverse toning clings to devices, allowing for highlights of other colors here and there in fields and protected areas. The reverse toning features concentric circles at the rims around a more sedate gray center. Highly lustrous and aesthetically appealing, this piece displays a sound strike from the centering dot to the edge. Only stars 6 and 7 lack their centers, while the central devices are crisp and defined. An infinitesimal mint clip, so small that no arc of missing metal is evident, manifests as a soft spot on the rim at 2:00 on the obverse and just below 3:00 on the reverse. The central obverse shows genuine die rust, not the spalling or chipping of the die surface that is so often incorrectly identified as such. The rust, present on either the portrait punch or the actual die, was somewhat haphazardly lapped by Mint personnel, leaving evidence among Libertys tresses as well as heavy lines from the files and engraving tools that were used to efface it. The fields are frosty and nearly pristine, perhaps not so boldly lustrous as other Capped Bust half dollars in this collection but very natural in appearance. No notable marks are seen, though a loupe finds a shallow abrasion in the field under UM of UNUM. These dies are uncracked and unclashed, though some of the eagles leg feathers are softly defined from a gentle lapping.Pittmans advice to "buy the best you can afford" has been the single-minded approach used to build the D. Brent Pogue Collection since its inception. Among specimens certified by PCGS, only one 1814 half dollar has ever received a higher grade, an Overton-103 sold by David Lawrence in 2012. When the currently offered coin was acquired at the 1998 Pittman sale, its first public offering in a half century, it brought a record price for a specimen of this date. In fact, even today, no Overton-102 has ever sold for more. Sometimes, buying the best you can afford means setting a record price. Sometimes, it doesnt: John Pittman acquired this coin in 1947 for $3.
