1852 Braided Hair Half Cent. Second Restrike. B-3. Rarity-7. Small Berries, Reverse of 1840. Proof-64+ BN (NGC). CAC.Iridescent golden-tan surfaces with a full strike and satin to semi-reflective finish. The United States Mint struck only Proof half cents in 1852. For years originals were unconfirmed, as various writers and researchers had speculated about the true nature of the 1852 Large Berries Proofs on the basis of precious little evidence. Neither Cohen nor Breen could get over the fact that the Large Berries reverse was used for all Proofs from 1840 to 1849, then shelved until the production of the 1852 Large Berries. We now know, thanks to the assembly of the Phil Kaufman Collection and follow-up research by John W. Dannreuther, that Proofs of each denomination used a single dedicated Proof reverse for all of the 1840s and, in some cases, as late as 1854, unless cracked or otherwise disabled. What Breen and others condemned as out of the order, under further examination, has turned out to have been standard operating procedure. In his <em>Encyclopedia of United States Half Cents</em> (1983), Walter Breen assigned the 1852 Large Berries the attribution B-4, but mistakenly classified it as a "Series VII" restrike. Now confirmed as an original striking of the year, the D. Brent Pogue specimen of the 1852 B-4 Large Berries realized $493,500 in our April 2017 Pogue V Sale.<p>The elusiveness of the 1852 half cent was recognized early, certainly by the late 1850s when the production of the novel small size 1856 Flying Eagle cent and other factors combined to spark the first great surge in popularity for the numismatic hobby in the United States. The first restrikes of the Proof 1852 half cent hail from that era, and it is during the years immediately preceding the outbreak of the Civil War that examples of the B-2 variety were struck. That variety is now regarded as the only readily obtainable die marriage of the Proof 1852 half cent, identifiable by doubling to the letter T in CENT on the reverse. The present example if from the far rarer B-3 Second Restrike die pairing, with die file marks (as made) along the border outside the letters RICA in AMERICA.<p>The total extant population of Proof restrikes of this date is fewer than 75 coins, confirming the important bidding opportunity represented by this handsome Choice B-3 coin. It is the fourth example of six listed in the Breen-Hanson census published in 1983.PCGS# 35405. NGC ID: 26ZT.Ex Thomas L. Elders A Veteran American Collector sale, July 1920, lot 796; Thomas L. Elders sale of February 1921, lot 2234; New Netherlands Coin Company, privately, circa 1953; later, Kagins ANA Sale of August 1977, lot 203; our (Stacks) sale of the Ellis Robison Collection, February 1982, lot 389; C. Watson; our (Stacks) session of Auction 89, August 1989, lot 1530; JMN & Associates; our (Bowers and Merenas) Lexington Collection Sale, January 1994, lot 1026; Jim McGuigan; Donald G. Partrick; Heritages sale of the Donald G. Partrick Collection, April 2021 CSNS Signature Auction, lot 3778.
