“The second Philadelphia Mint, a lovely marble Greek Revival temple of numisma, opened for business in late January of 1833 at the corner of Juniper and Chestnut Streets.” — Joel Orosz and Leonard Augsburger, The Secret History of the First U.S. Mint, 2011 The finer of just two Proof 1833 dimes certified by PCGS, this coin is not only important for its Proof format, but is also the finest known survivor of the rare 1833 John Reich-2 die variety. Definitive sharpness of detail shows on all devices, including sculptural fineness of the hair that shows each graver stroke, peaks and valleys in the perfectly formed stars, and the individual scales on the eagle’s talons. Even with its incredible strike, a few tiny flat spots remain among the tresses behind Liberty’s eye. The toning is deep and original, mostly dark navy blue and pewter gray away from a light source, but in direct light the highly reflective fields alight with gold, pale blue, pastel violet, and brilliant silver pulling away from the peripheral legends. The rims are high, square, and perfectly preserved. A few small lintmarks are noted, one on the lower ribbon end behind Liberty’s head, a tiny one above star 6 near the beaded border, one hidden near the border above the first A in AMERICA, a nearly invisible one at the tip of the beak, and another curled in the field off the eagle’s throat. No consequential marks or defects are noted, and only in proper light can a short hairline on Liberty’s cheek adjacent to her cheek curl be seen. A long die crack nearly bisects the obverse, running from the field above Liberty’s cap, seemingly not quite reaching the rim though the crack probably continued to the border of the die face, through the central device, then boldly crossing from her lowest curls to the border right of the date. The dies are fresh and unclashed, with none of the further cracks described in the literature, suggesting that the diagonal bisection befell this obverse during the hardening process. With outstanding originality and profoundly mirrored fields, this dime is the very picture of how an early United States silver Proof coin should look. It was struck in a brand new building, nine blocks from the structure that had been the only home of the United States Mint since 1792, but on the same old equipment. New equipment, designed to run with steam power, would be installed in 1836. If this coin were struck as a special presentation piece to mark the opening of the new Mint, it would likely be more common. There was precedent for such commemorative Proof issues, namely the 1829 Proof half dimes, struck in relatively substantial numbers on July 4, 1829, the day the cornerstone was laid for the new Mint. When the building finally opened for business, no such commemorations appear to have been made; rather, the employees and their machines simply went to work, as they had been doing for decades. There appear to be just three known Proofs of this date, all struck from the same set of dies. This has the oldest and most impressive pedigree of the three specimens, dating back to Thomas Cleneay’s collection, largely formed in the 1860s and 1870s, sold after his death in 1887. A tiny flaw near the left-pointing tip of star 13 is readily matched to the Cleneay plate and the image in the 1912 George H. Earle, Jr. sale. Walter Breen unhesitatingly identified the Cleneay coin as the piece that was later in the Howard R. Newcomb Collection, sold as lot 556 in the February 1945 J.C. Morgenthau & Co. sale that also included Newcomb’s legendary early date large cents. Though the Newcomb sale was sparsely cataloged by the partnership of Wayte Raymond and James Macallister and the 1833 Proof dime lot was unplated, Breen was probably correct. Newcomb displayed his Proof 1833 dime at the 1914 American Numismatic Society exhibition, late enough to have acquired it after its last known appearance in the Earle sale. The other two known specimens, the Will W. Neil (Mehl, 1947)-Floyd T. Starr (Stack’s, 1992) coin and the Dr. Christian Allenburger (Mehl, 1948)-Pittman (Akers, 1997) coin, don’t fit as neatly into the timeline. The Neil coin sold for $21 in 1947; the Neil catalog reports that it cost $16 at some earlier date, a profit that seems unlikely in a two-year time span. The Newcomb coin sold for $11, a reflection of the era, when “tarnish” was condemned in the pages of The Numismatist and dark originality was viewed as less desirable than the reflective brilliance of the Neil coin. The Allenburger sale catalog indicates that the entire group of 1833 Proof coins in the collection had been acquired together “more than a quarter of a century ago,” thus eliminating the possibility that this was the coin that Newcomb still owned in 1945. Though it appears more likely than not that this is the Newcomb specimen, without something verifiable, we have omitted Howard Rounds Newcomb’s name from the provenance listing below. Less certain, but also within the realms of the possible, is the provenance Breen suggests for this coin prior to its placement in the Cleneay Collection: the 1864 John F. McCoy sale by W. Elliot Woodward. The mid-1860s were perhaps Cleneay’s busiest time for acquisitions, lending some credence to the speculation. Lot 574 in the McCoy sale was described as “1833 Brilliant proof, extremely rare.” It sold for $3.75, more than similarly described Proof dimes of 1823, 1827, 1829, 1830, 1831, 1832, and 1834, less than Proofs from 1821, 1824, 1825, and 1828. Of course, without plates, or named catalogs that firmly link these specimens to pieces known in the modern era, there’s little way to discern if these are even Proofs, by the modern definition, let alone specific examples thereof. David Akers knew of just two specimens, the Allenburger-Pittman coin and the Neil-Starr coin. Though this specimen was offered in a 1989 auction, its first public appearance in decades, Akers seems to have missed it. Cataloging the Pittman coin, Akers praised the rarity of this issue while admitting it was likely to stay relatively unappreciated. “This is one of the many coins in the Pittman Collection that will be overshadowed by later and greater rarities to follow,” Akers wrote, “but this coin actually ranks as one of the rarest items in the entire collection.” So it goes. PCGS# 4555. NGC ID: 27D5.
