Anyone interested in 1794 large cents, 1795 half dollars, 1794 dollars, or the history of the First United States Mint probably thinks he already knows who St. Oswald was. - Michael Hodder, "Who Was Major The Lord St. Oswald?" The Asylum,1994Mint color frames peripheries and devices, contrasting slightly with the mellowed fields and devices. The surfaces retain strong luster and appear very glossy on both sides. The color on the portrait is somewhat uneven, but the reverse is more finely blended and more abundantly red. No post-striking marks of any significance are seen on either side, leaving the fields and devices as immaculate as when struck. A tiny linear flaw atop the crown of Libertys head, mistakenly called "a thin planchet defect" by Bland, is a struck-through, akin to a lintmark. The minuscule mark near the denticles behind the cap predates striking, as do the fine contact points below Y of LIBERTY and the mark below the bust truncation.The central obverse shows a near total collapse. Repeated clashing has left the obverse concave, most visible at the ends of the denticles below the date. Two linear depressions, called "trenches" by Breen, extend from the rim at left to Libertys nose and lips; a heavy and indistinct crack may be seen in the upper depression, while the lower depression contains a sharper and more defined crack. The lower crack spans into and across Libertys upper lip. This crack, present alongside clash marks near the cap, places this coin between Breens Die State V and VI. Areas of the central wreath have lost some definition from clashing and subsequent repair, and the field within the wreath and around the fraction appears wavy and eroded. A light crack or flaw connects the tops of CA of AMERICA.From the moment word reached the United States that a group of American coins from the 1790s had been discovered in an English manor, the name Lord St. Oswald has been renowned among numismatists. Despite the spreading fame of this collection, already fevered within days of the sale and undoubtedly greater with decades of retrospect, for years the identity of the collector was shrouded in mystery. Walter Breen, who cataloged for most of the New York numismatic houses in 1964 and was thus in the thick of the Lord St. Oswald fever, concocted an impressive tale about an English lord whose presence at the Philadelphia Mint was feted with presentation strikings. Michael Hodder called Breens fantasies into question in The Asylum in 1994, but threw the baby out with the Breenian bathwater, insisting the coins could be traced no earlier than 1964. David Tripps research discovered William Strickland, a collector and ancestor of the modern Winn/St. Oswald family, who was in Philadelphia in 1794 and 1795, restoring the historical importance of the collection through dutiful documentation.This is the finest known example of the die variety, the best of three examples of this variety from the Lord St. Oswald sale. In 1964, Christies described it simply as "obverse weakly struck but mint state and red." It received somewhat more attention when offered in 1997 and 2008. This is its fourth auction appearance.
