“The United States [Bank] office at Richmond will take $5 notes issued by the mother bank on any of its branches … they are to all intents and purposes as good in its operations, as a half eagle or five Spanish dollars.” — The Raleigh Minerva, Raleigh, North Carolina, July 7, 1820 A fully frosty gem specimen of this rare variety, the second D. Brent Pogue example is struck from a slightly earlier die state of the obverse than the previously offered coin. The medium yellow gold surfaces are aglow with satiny luster, highlighting deeper color around peripheral design elements as it spins past. The strike is nice and crisp, showing just minor softness on the curl in front of Liberty’s ear. Some trivial scattered lines are seen, not serious individually or as a group. A couple tiny contact marks are noted below ME of AMERICA, and a couple of short scratches hide in non-focal areas, namely a horizontal scrape at the corner of Liberty’s eye and a vertical scratch above the left upright of the first U of UNUM. The appearance of this coin, with no prooflike reflectivity, is vastly different from the preceding lot. The die state is almost identical, except the spalling artifacts off of Liberty’s forecurl are almost imperceptibly smaller on this coin than on the previous coin. The dramatic difference in appearance yet nearly identical die states could provoke intense discussion among specialists. For collectors, these coins offer an unusual decision: would you rather have a prooflike gem specimen of a Rarity-7 early half eagle, or a frosty gem specimen of the same extremely rare variety? Decisions like this are fodder for parlor games most of the time, but in our offering of the D. Brent Pogue Collection, they make the transition from fantasy to reality. Nine die marriages of 1820 half eagles are known, of which three are Curl Base 2 obverse, Large Letters reverse combinations. All three of these are rare. BD-5 is perhaps the most commonly encountered, with a population estimated at 20 to 25 pieces. BD-7 appears to have a population of six coins, as listed above. BD-9 may be the rarest of the varieties, with a population estimated in the Bass-Dannreuther book at four to six coins. The total population of 1820 Curl Base 2, Large Letters half eagles appears to be in the range of 30 to 40 coins over the full gamut of grades, in both private and institutional collections. The Square Base 2 obverses, used on BD-1 through BD-4, are seen on somewhere between 75 and 100 surviving specimens, most of which are struck from the BD-3 combination. The two Curl Base 2, Small Letters varieties (BD-6, BD-8) are both extremely rare; the Bass-Dannreuther text estimates the combined population is just 10 to 16 coins. The D. Brent Pogue Collection includes specimens of each of these major varieties of 1820 half eagle, four coins in all, each of them superb gems. Few are the collectors who could acquire two gem examples of a Rarity-7 early half eagle variety, representing one-third of the entire surviving population, rather than choosing between the prooflike gem and the frosty gem. The joy of collecting implicit in such a decision – why not both? – is the same whether the coins cost tens of dollars or many hundreds of thousands. While the D. Brent Pogue Collection is unlike any collection that has ever been assembled, the gentleman who built it is like most collectors, passionate about these objects, excited to find a new coin to acquire, always looking for a reason to include a new piece as long as it meets an exacting standard of quality. The four 1820 half eagles in the Pogue Collection include three coins graded MS-65+ by PCGS and a single piece certified even finer, MS-66+. Four of the five 1820 half eagles certified finer than MS-65 by PCGS are in this sale, 80% of the entire population. It took a quarter century to bring this group of four pieces together, and longer still to gather the highest quality collection of early half eagles ever assembled. While more early half eagles dated 1821 through 1834 await sale, the dispersal of this group represents the end of an important chapter in the numismatic history of this denomination. PCGS# 519926. NGC ID: 25PT.
