1833 Classic Head Half Cent. C-1. Rarity-1. MS-66 RB (PCGS). CAC. A superior Gem with vibrant tangerine luster and steel blue accents throughout each side. The fields are satiny and softly cartwheel at a tilt, while a more rich frosting blankets the devices. Impressively sharp and well composed across even the highest points. This piece is tied at the top of the PCGS Population Report with only the Pogue specimen and ranks even finer than the spectacular MS-65 (PCGS) RB specimen offered in our March 2020 sale of the ESM Collection.<p>One of the more popular type candidates in the Classic Head half cent series of 1809 to 1836, hundreds of Mint State examples of the 1833 were discovered by the Guttag Brothers of New York City during the 1930s. The Guide Book provides a mintage of 103,000 coins for this issue but, based on a study of die states, Manley concludes that production of 1833-dated and 1834-dated examples overlapped, the Mint apparently switching back and forth between the obverse dies (the issues share the same reverse). The actual number of half cents struck from the 1833-dated obverse can only be surmised, the mintage probably somewhere between 120,000 and 184,000 coins. Even so, only about 50 examples remain at the Gem level, this one being one of the very finest known.
