A simply exquisite piece with vivid multicolored toning that really needs to be seen to be fully appreciated. Shades of red, gold, blue and rose are all very much in evidence, the brightest colors largely confined to the peripheries. The strike is universally bold, both sides also revealing considerable vibrancy to a smooth, satiny texture.Only two varieties of 1806 half dollars use a reverse with no stem through the eagles claw, this one and the extremely rare O-108. Though a fair number are known in nice grade, including more than a dozen in lower Mint State grades, most are at lower levels through MS-63. This remarkable near-Gem qualifies as Condition Census for the 1806 O-109 dies, and it is a significant rarity for both the individual variety as well as the type as a whole.This variety appears to have been first published in the so-called "Haseltine Type Table," an 1881 auction by John Haseltine that was published as a monograph, thereafter serving as the first listing of die varieties of quarter dollars, half dollars, and silver dollars. The collection was built by J. Colvin Randall, a Philadelphia numismatist, and it was Randall who wrote the Type Table, despite Haseltines claims of authorship. Randall owned a specimen he called Uncirculated (perhaps this specimen?). His idea that the variety was extremely rare has been modified by later discoveries, as collecting half dollars by variety has become a popular pastime in the 20th and 21st centuries.,,PCGS# 6071. NGC ID: 24EJ.,NGC Census (all die marriages of the issue): 22; 9 finer (MS-66 finest).,
