“Hundreds are most laboriously employed on turnpikes, working from morning till night at from half a dollar to three quarters per day, exposed to the broiling sun in summer, and all the inclemency of our severe winters.” — Matthew Carey, Essays from Extracts on the Public Charities of Philadelphia, 1829 Reflective and spectacularly lustrous, this specimen uniquely blends rich gold and pale blue-green toning on both sides. The designs are exceptionally well struck, raising full detail from both sides from the outer limits of the peripheries to the absolute centers. Radial flowlines carry the luster, making the attractive toning glow when turned under a light. Some very minor hairlines may be discerned, but the only marks worth mentioning are far outside the field of view, against the denticles over the space between stars 10 and 11. A triangular area behind the eagle’s head shows some gloss, apparently the remnant of some foreign material that remains harmlessly adhered to the surface. The obverse shows an arc crack from the inside of star 10, across the inner point of star 11, extending to the field beyond Liberty’s lowest curl above the 9 of the date. The reverse die has been lapped to rid it of clash marks, removing the shafts from the arrows in the process. Some vestiges of the clashing remain above the top of Liberty’s bosom and left of the top of the wing at left. The full title of Matthew Carey’s 1829 collection of essays was Essays on the Public Charities of Philadelphia, Intended to Vindicate the Benevolent Societies of this City from the Charge of Encouraging Idleness. For much of the early 19th century, a half dollar represented a stout daily wage, but in Philadelphia by the end of the 1820s, a half dollar to three-quarters of a dollar seemed uncharitably low for a man laboring outdoors under less than ideal conditions. Carey, a printer who once worked for Benjamin Franklin, was a well-regarded economist in his day who published several treatises on the subject of lifting up society’s lower classes through compassion and charity. His Essays brought attention to poor working conditions and income inequality before such topics were buzzwords, and copies found their way into the libraries of many of the most influential politicians of the day, including James Madison’s at Montpelier. Modern historians don’t agree on the state of inflation in 1829, and undoubtedly the economy was a mixed bag that depended upon class, industry, and location. Some scholars suggest abundant and inexpensive Western lands had an inflationary impact; others point out that industrialization begat a new generation of wage earners competing for products. As complicated as the American economy was on the cusp of the 1830s, a half dollar remained a lot of money for most people, and nearly all working class Americans would have preferred this coin to 60 or 70 cents in scrip. A particularly pristine example, this coin is easily the finest known survivor of the die marriage. It ranks the single best 1829 half dollar of any die variety seen by PCGS, the only MS-66+ out of nearly 300 Mint State submissions. The D. Brent Pogue Collection also includes the finest 1829/7 graded by PCGS, one of two at the MS-66 level. PCGS# 506728.
