1851 Liberty Seated Silver Dollar. OC-1. Rarity-5. AU-58 (PCGS). This is a significant, highly desirable near-Mint example of the low mintage, key date 1851 silver dollar. Lovely surfaces exhibit dominant silver and olive-gray iridescence, with vivid undertones of mottled powder blue and reddish-rose. The strike is sharp throughout and there is intense satin to semi-reflective luster evident.<p>The trend toward smaller circulation strike production of silver dollars that was begun in 1850 continued in 1851, with an even lower mintage of 1,300 pieces. The vast quantities of gold entering the world market from California caused the price of silver relative to gold to rise to the point where the intrinsic value of a United States silver dollar outstripped its face value. In such a situation there was little, if any incentive for bullion dealers to have their silver coined into dollars, explaining the small circulation strike mintages from the Philadelphia Mint in 1850, 1851 and 1852. Those coins that were produced were almost certainly not released into domestic circulation at the time, or else they would have been exported and/or melted. It is likely that some 1851 dollars found their way into circulation later in the 19th century, by which time the rarity of this date was already well established (the Mint had produced Proof restrikes for collectors as early as 1858). Sharp-eyed bank tellers and others with regular access to silver dollars during the late 1870s and 1880s probably set aside examples of the 1851 and other key date Liberty Seated issues. This accounts for some of the coins in todays numismatic market, especially minimally circulated examples such as this PCGS AU-58. We believe that fewer than 100 coins are extant in all grades, Dick Osburn and Brian Cushing providing a more precise estimate of 65 survivors in their 2018 reference <em>Liberty Seated Silver Dollars: A Register of Die Varieties</em>. This is one of the nicest that we have handled in quite some time, and will be just right for an advanced collection of silver dollars or Liberty Seated coinage.<p> From the Midnight Collection.
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