“If a traveler, setting off from Philadelphia for Savannah, can supply himself here with bank notes which will be received all the way, he will take them. But he will rather supply himself with half eagles, than be obliged to exchange his traveling money every hundred miles.” — “Outlines of a Plan for the Regulation of The Circulating Medium of the United States,” The American Review of History and Politics, April 1812 The finest known example of the scarcer of the two die combinations for this date, this coin is evenly toned in deep yellow gold over highly lustrous surfaces. Satiny and attractive, this piece has a fairly uniform appearance, though the color of the toning deepens slightly inside the rims on the reverse. The strike is bold on both sides, and few reverse details are affected by the adjustment marks, which hide unobtrusively at the rims, other than a shallow batch seen at TA of STATES and PLUR of PLURIBUS below. The fields are free of marks of any consequence, showing only a few light lines in front of Liberty’s profile. A light abrasion is masked within Liberty’s drapery right of the top of the first 1 in the date, and two tiny twin nicks are outside the focal area at the rim above star 5. Small patches of raised artifacts were left in front of Liberty’s nose and lips after chips of the die face fell away, a process called spalling though often referred to with the misnomer “die rust.” A smaller patch is isolated in the lower left obverse field parallel to star 2. Lapping in these areas may have helped precipitate the spalling, but it succeeded in diminishing the vestiges of earlier die clashing. A small area of the die clash remains visible at Liberty’s chin, and impressions from the shield are seen behind Liberty’s ear. The reverse is unclashed. The slightly granular texture above the eagle’s head is the by-product of dust or detritus on the die face, perhaps some of the material from the obverse die that was removed by lapping or was spalled away. The two varieties of 1812 half eagles are easily distinguished from each other, much like the two varieties of 1811 half eagles, but the Guide Book and PCGS do not subdivide this date into its two die varieties as they do the 1811 issue. Categorized as the “Close 5D” in the Bass-Dannreuther book, this variety is described therein by John Dannreuther as “unappreciated” and “in relation to its brothers of this type ... very scarce.” Harry Bass, whose desire to incorporate die states into his immense collection of United States gold coins resulted in great duplication, owned only one example of this die combination. Unlike most collectors then or now, John H. Clapp acquired both varieties of the 1812 half eagle. Clapp actually found his Close 5D before he bought the more common Wide 5D, acquiring this coin and two 1810 half eagles from Elmer Sears in a single transaction in April 1910. Clapp was very active in the marketplace at the time, buying coins by private treaty and participating in Thomas L. Elder’s auction of the famous Peter Mougey Collection in August of that year. Sears was a fertile source of scarce and rare gold coins for Clapp both before and after 1910, selling him a number of mintmarked quarter eagles, half eagles dated 1796/5 and 1818, and other scarce issues. When an announcement of the formation of the United States Coin Company, a partnership between Sears and Wayte Raymond, appeared in The Numismatist in 1912, Sears was called “one of the greatest authorities on gold coins of the United States.” John H. Clapp could have been described with the same words. This is one of only seven specimens of this design type graded finer than MS-65 by PCGS, all seven of which are offered in the present sale. Among half eagles of this date, regardless of their variety, only a single finer specimen has ever been identified. That coin is offered in the previous lot. PCGS# 507602. NGC ID: 25PL.
