From the pedigrees in the 75 ANA Sale and the Merkin 68 Sale it became apparent that Baldenhofer had a large number of silver dollars that were not part of the 1955 Stacks sale.-W. David Perkins, "Who Was Farish Baldenhofer." The Asylum, Spring 2007With colorful displays of sea green, royal blue, violet, and gold, this example makes a bold aesthetic impression. Both sides are ringed with abundant lustrous cartwheel; the reverse is somewhat reflective. Only minor scattered marks are seen, along with the usual faint hairlines, though a light horizontal scratch crosses the lower left obverse field from between stars 2 and 3 to the back of Libertys hair. The strike is good, showing only the expected localized softness on the ear curl and cheek on the obverse and among the star cluster on the reverse. A bold array of denticles frames both sides. The die state, as typical, is perfect.Before a serendipitous mid-1990s discovery by W. David Perkins led to a 2007 article titled "Who Was Farish Baldenhofer," the Baldenhofer-Ostheimer provenance was shrouded in mystery. Perkins had been gathering information on early dollar collectors for years, but only the acquisition of Jacque Ostheimers personal copy of the September 1968 Lester Merkin sale opened a door that allowed the story to be known.The November 1955 Farish Baldenhofer sale was an instant classic, accorded a full "A" grade by John W. Adams in his United States Numismatic Literature, Volume Two by virtue of its panoply of rarities: 1823 and 1827 quarters, an 1838-O half dollar, 1884 and 1885 trade dollars, a 1798 Small Eagle half eagle, a Proof 1804 eagle, and more. One thing it lacked was a significant grouping of early dollars; aside from a 1794 dollar, the other 18 lots were nice without being earth-shattering. It was clear from the two major offerings of early dollars from the Ostheimer Collection that Baldenhofers dollar cabinet had been much more significant. When Perkins found a piece of register tape marked "Cost Baldenhofer" tipped into Mrs. Ostheimers copy of the 1968 Merkin sale that included a major consignment from her own collection of early dollars, the facts began to fall together.Perkins tracked down Mrs. Ostheimer, then retired to New Mexico, and found that she was not only willing to tell the story of the Baldenhofer Collection, but still had all the original paperwork, including a detailed listing of the Baldenhofer early dollars. In December 1959, with M.H. Bolender acting as a middleman, Ostheimer had acquired the entire silver dollar collection of William G. Baldenhofer of Springfield, Ohio. For the purposes of his earlier Stacks consignment, Baldenhofer had borrowed the last name of a business partner, Farish, to add as a name for the catalog cover. Baldenhofers remarkable group of early dollars was seamlessly folded into the Ostheimer Collection, one of the most important cabinets ever formed of any early United States denomination. While Baldenhofers source for this coin is unknown, it likely was once owned by either Virgil Brand or Col. E.H.R. Green. Both Brand and Greens collections were being dispersed in the 1940s when Baldenhofer was an active buyer, and either tycoon could have purchased this coin soon after its appearance in the 1890 Cleneay sale.This is one of the two finest 1803 Small 3 dollars certified by PCGS. When it was ranked atop the 1993 Bowers census on the strength of its description from the 1975 ANA sale, Bowers mused, "Whether any Mint State coins exist as per stringent present-day grading interpretations is a matter for debate." This piece answers that question once and for all, offered publicly for the first time since nearly 20 years before the Bowers book was published.