I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 8th and with the ten half dollars accompanying, struck with new machinery. I herewith enclose a check on the Girard Bank, Pa $5, being the amount.” — Secretary of the Treasury Levi Woodbury to Mint Director Robert M. Patterson, November 10, 1836</em>Undiminished luster covers both sides in luminous cartwheel, and delicate peripheral toning offers contrast to the widespread frosty silvery brilliance. The obverse is toned faint champagne gold, more notable at the periphery than elsewhere, while the reverse shows a thin crescent of bright blue around the top, left, and base, framing gold tones deeper than those on the obverse at periphery and center. The eye appeal is remarkable, closely approximating what would appear in the viewer’s hand had they had the opportunity to reach deep into the box next to the steam press on November 8, 1836. The devices are well struck, though localized areas of weakness are seen in the lower right obverse, particularly on stars 10 through 12, and the opposite position on the reverse, including the top of the wing at right and several letters of AMERICA. Light hairlines are seen on both sides, but no heavy marks. A thin jogging nick crosses the upper reverse field from below O in OF to behind the eagle’s neck, and a dull mark is noted above N of CENTS. A speck on Liberty’s neck may be evidence of a tiny lamination. Some surface encrustation remains below N of UNITED. The dies are fresh, uncracked and unclashed, with all their intended frost intact.Steam power had been used to coin other denominations before the half dollar, namely cents beginning in April 1836 and quarters soon thereafter, but the production of the workhorse half dollar remained a goal for most of 1836. The large numbers of half dollars required by the American economy forced the Mint to devote the majority of its capacity to the denomination. While the reintroduction of the dollar denomination was expected to alleviate some of the pressure on half dollar outputs, the 50 cents denomination remained an important frontier to be conquered by steam. Cents and quarters, both relatively small and easy to strike, were natural warm-up acts for the half dollar, whose size and heft required far more technological savvy. While the processes involved were not running flawlessly until the spring of 1837, the production of a small group of half dollars on the steam press in November 1836 was a victory nonetheless. The construction of a new press in 1837 capable of steam coinage of dollars was the only challenge that remained.Though a mintage figure of 1,200 pieces for circulation was divined by Walter Breen decades ago, the true figure is undoubtedly several thousand higher. Breen worked from delivery statistics that showed 738,000 half dollars coined in November 1836 and 1,034,200 struck in December, but was otherwise nonspecific. While the first Reeded Edge halves were struck in November, Robert W. Julian has described “technical difficulties” that “were serious enough that [Chief Coiner Adam Eckfeldt] would be forced to return to the screw press and lettered-edge half dollars.” Given the population of surviving 1836 Reeded Edge half dollars today, Julian has estimated the mintage was actually closer to 5,000 pieces.Between the legendarily elusive Small Eagle half dollars of 1796 and 1797 and the scarce Philadelphia Mint dates between 1879 and 1890, no other half dollar issue approaches the low mintage of the 1836 Reeded Edge. The number struck was just a fraction of such well regarded dates as 1794 and 1815, without the relatively high survivorship and large Proof mintages of the final decade of the Seated Liberty design. Beyond its evident historical importance, the 1836 Reeded Edge has always been admired as a rarity. For most of the 19th century, this issue was deemed a pattern, too rare to have been issued for circulation. While listed in J. Hewitt Judd’s <em>United States Pattern, Trial, and Experimental Pieces</em> as Judd-57, a listing that remains in modern editions out of a sense of tradition, the 1836 Reeded Edge half dollar is now acknowledged as a regular issue coin. The vast majority of survivors show significant wear, and gems are all but unknown, aside from this specimen.PCGS has extended a grade of MS-60 to MS-64 to an 1836 Reeded Edge half dollar on 28 occasions. This is the only example ever offered a higher grade. It is tempting to wonder if this is one of the pieces Levi Woodbury kept from the first batch of 1836 Reeded Edge halves, purchased from the Mint at face value in November 1836.PCGS# 531046. NGC ID: 2U28.
