Beautiful and distinctive golden toning displays multicolored highlights of deep orange and pale blue, with subtle hints of violet and sea green. The luster is bold and frosty, with swift cartwheels encircling both sides. Well struck from an early die state, Manley 1.0, the strike was bold enough to raise a wire rim around the base of the obverse from 5:00 to 9:00. The fields are pristine, with only a single minor contact point below CENT on the reverse worthy of mention, and the visual appeal is spectacular. Though Mint State 1854 half cents are commonplace, mostly in spotty minglings of red and brown with mushy strikes, this piece stands apart in every aesthetic and technical category. Its stature as the single finest specimen graded by PCGS (out of more than 560 certifications at the Mint State level), testifies to its remarkable quality.The sole circulation strike half cent of this final design type included in the D. Brent Pogue Collection, this coin serves as an elegy to the denomination. After a combined mintage of over one million pieces were coined in 1828 and 1829, half cent production took a long sabbatical during which only Proof specimens were struck. Reintroduced in 1850, the half cent coinage of 1851 was the last to exceed 150,000 pieces. By 1854, just over 55,000 were struck, further declining to 35,180 in 1857, the final year of the denomination. While most half cents of the 1850s saw little circulation, true gems remain scarce, making this a fitting conclusion to this remarkable half cent collection.
