“Amongst the plagues of life, a ten cent piece stands conspicuous. It is a plague as peculiar to America as the malaria is to the domains of his holiness the Pope.” — The Elizabeth City Intelligencer, Elizabeth City, North Carolina, June 2, 1827 Aglow with satiny luster, this beautiful dime shows ideal peripheral toning of bright blue, violet, and gold around brilliant silver centers. The surfaces are particularly frosty and present a fine fresh appearance. Some light lines are seen in the fields, but they are of no consequence to the excellent eye appeal, and no noteworthy contact marks are seen. The strike is very sharp on both sides, encompassing all details from the rims to centers, though stars 1 and 2 on the left side and star 13 on the right side lack full central detail and the denticles atop the reverse are a bit flat. A thin crack connects the bases of RICA to the two arrowheads immediately below. Some light vestiges of a die clash are seen, showing up at the angle between Liberty’s throat and bust, along a curve at the olive leaves and tops of the denomination, at the top of the eagle’s wing at left and the bottom of the wing at right. The finest example of this variety seen by the authors of the JR book was the Lovejoy coin, formerly offered in the 1969 R.L. Miles sale, described as MS-60 in the 1984 JR book and “Brilliant Uncirculated, a few faint hairlines” in the 1990 Lovejoy sale. It has not been traced and is not among the top grade specimens of this date or variety sold at auction in the last 15 years, but a spot at Liberty’s ribbon ends serves to identify it. While definitively calling this the finest known would require seeing several other specimens in hand, including the piece reported as MS-66 in the 2006 and 2009 Horning censuses, this is the finest to be offered publicly in the modern era and is a standout specimen from these dies. Among 15 examples reported to Horning for his census work, published in the John Reich Journal, just a single specimen was graded Mint State. The JR book suggests that “this scarce variety is difficult to find above VF-30,” a contention that continues to be borne out by the auction data. PCGS# 38815. NGC ID: 2375.
