STACK'S BOWERS: DEAN OAKES FAMILY COLLECTION

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V29 2026 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 29, Number 4, 2026, Article 17

Stack's Bowers will be selling the The Dean Oakes Family Collection as part of their February 2025 Showcase Auction on February 3, 2026. Select items are discussed below. -Garrett

1793 Liberty Cap Half Cent. Head Left. C-2. Rarity-3. EF-40 (PCGS). The 1793 half cent is significant as the first United States half cent, the only issue of the Liberty Cap, Head Left design type and one of just two denominations struck during the Mint's first full year of coinage operations (the other is the large cent). Henry Voigt engraved the dies, and by mid-May the Mint had already prepared more than 30,000 planchets for the half cents, including having their edges lettered. All of the planchets were made from sheet copper. Actual coinage did not commence until July 19, however, with production on that date probably accounting for most or all of the 7,000 examples delivered to the treasurer the following day. The remaining 24,934 half cents were struck from July 23 to 25 and delivered on July 26, for a total mintage of 31,934 pieces for the 1793 Liberty Cap issue. The oft-published mintage of 35,334 pieces for this issue includes an additional 3,400 coins delivered with the Liberty Cap cents on September 18, 1793, that William R. Eckberg (The Half Cent, 1793-1857: The Story of America's Greatest Little Coin, 2019) believes were actually cents based on the records of Mint Treasurer Tristram Dalton. When half cent coinage resumed in 1794, the denomination featured a modified Liberty Cap design by Robert Scot with the portrait facing to the right.

Given its current popularity, it may be surprising that the 1793 half cent seems to have been generally overlooked by contemporary collectors. No notable high grade pieces appeared from English or other European sources in the 20th century, suggesting that few, if any, Mint State examples were set aside by numismatists and others who visited the early United States. It was not until the 1850s that numismatics as a hobby began to gain widespread popularity in the United States, and the earliest known interest in the 1793 half cent as a valuable collectible dates to that decade. In 1855 collector Winslow Howard purchased a lot of two examples in the Pierre Flandin sale, one of the first major numismatic auctions held in the United States. Mr. Howard paid $7 for his two 1793 half cents, a sizable sum, especially since half cents could still be found in commerce during the 1850s, at least in major Eastern cities like Philadelphia and New York. It is almost certainly the retrieval of coins from circulation during the decade preceding the Civil War that accounts for the majority of 1793 half cents known today, a theory that squares nicely with an extant population comprised almost exclusively of worn coins.

The exact number of Mint State 1793 half cents extant is a matter of debate, although it certainly represents an infinitesimal proportion of all survivors. Given their undeniable rarity, the best that most collectors can hope to acquire for this issue is an AU, although the sharp-eyed bidder will recognize this premium EF-40 as conservatively graded and difficult to improve upon in a lightly circulated example.

1796 Liberty Cap Half Cent. C-2. Rarity-4+. With Pole. VF-30 (PCGS). With only 140 or so coins extant in all grades (per Bill Eckberg, 2019), the 1796 is the rarest date in the entire half cent series of 1793 to 1857. Most survivors are from the C-2 dies, as here, examples of which have been honored rarities ever since numismatics became widely popular in the 1850s. Since then the appearance of a 1796 has been a special occasion.

Although not as rare as its C-1 No Pole counterpart, the 1796 C-2 is still very scarce. Perhaps surprisingly for such an elusive variety, there are several Mint State coins known, including at least three Gem Red and Brown coins. Beyond the handful of Mint State coins, however, the census for this variety quickly drops to the lowest circulated grades, and individual coins at those levels are usually dark and porous. Our offering of this well defined and handsome PCGS VF-30 example represents an important bidding opportunity.

1793 Flowing Hair Cent. Chain Reverse. S-1, B-1. Rarity-4. AMERI. EF-40 (PCGS). CAC. OGH. The 1793 Chain cents are numismatic Americana at their finest. After pattern coinage in 1792, the first federal coins made for general circulation at the new Mint building in Philadelphia were struck at the end of February 1793 and delivered by the coiner in early March. These were the first large cents, production of which preceded that of half cents by several months. The pieces were put into circulation, with no known numismatic attention paid to them. Indeed, the number of people seriously interested in numismatics in the United States at that time could be counted on the fingers of one hand, and these gentlemen mainly concerned themselves with earlier and classic issues.

The Chain cents are struck in rather low relief, whereas their successors, the Wreath cents, are in dramatic high relief, more so than any other large copper cent issue.

Over the years the cents of 1793 have had special place in the hearts of numismatists. Indeed, the first photographic plate printed in The American Journal of Numismatics in 1869 was a panel of cents of this year gathered from various collections. Ever since numismatics became a widely popular hobby in the late 1850s, the ownership of a 1793 Chain cent has been a badge of distinction. The Sheldon-1 die pairing, offered here, enjoys particularly strong demand not only as the first variety of large cent produced, but also as the only one of the Chain Reverse design with the AMERI. abbreviation in the legend.

1802 Draped Bust Half Dime. LM-1, V-1. Rarity-5. VG Details--Damage (PCGS). Second only to the 1870-S half dime in desirability for the denomination, the 1802 half dime has captivated numismatists and scholars since the mid to late 19th century. The story of this legendary rarity goes back to the earliest days of the United States Mint. The half dime denomination has the distinction of being the first coin struck by the fledgling United States Mint, and while this achievement was heralded by George Washington as "a small beginning," the coin struggled to find an audience in commerce. Over 86,000 half dimes were produced from late 1794 through 1795, but this would be by far the largest mintage for the denomination in all its earliest years. Yellow fever was an ongoing concern in Philadelphia at the end of the 18th century and it took a toll on the quantity of coins struck as well as their quality. Focus was placed on cents and half dollars, punctuated by a virtually dollars-only policy from 1795 to 1800 to meets the needs of the financial and mercantile communities, all throughout which the half dime was relegated somewhat as an ancillary denomination.

The 1802 half dimes entered circulation unceremoniously and with few - if any - numismatists around to appreciate the rarity of the issue, there they stayed. Through normal wear and meltings (especially after the 1853 reduction in weight standards for silver coins), the number of survivors in change dropped. By the late 1850s, American numismatics had started to take root and in December 1859, the first recorded appearance of an 1802 half dime at auction was made in an Edward Cogan sale. In December 1863, the William A. Lilliendahl Collection specimen sold for $340, an astonishing price for a coin during the depths of the Civil War. By 1883, this issue's scarcity was readily recognized, so much so that Harold P. Newlin devoted nearly a third of his landmark monograph on the series, A Classification of the Early Half Dimes of the United States, to the 1802 half dime. Of this issue, Newlin wrote that, "Upon these facts I base my opinion, that the half-dime of 1802 is the most desirable of the silver series." The Newlin monograph served as the primary reference for half dime collectors until Dr. Daniel W. Valentine's 1931 work, The United States Half Dimes, where this issue is listed as V.1. In 1998, Russell J. Logan and John W. McCloskey published Federal Half Dimes 1792-1837, regarded as the definitive work on the subject.

Ever since Newlin's treatise, the 1802 half dime gained considerable fame. Augustus G. Heaton, one-time president of the American Numismatic Association, referenced the coin as "his 'better half' / The Little 1802" in his 1894 poem, "The Convention of the Thirteen Silver Barons." B. Max Mehl thought so highly of the issue that in his 1947 W.W. Neil sale, he not only allocated a full page for the half dime - something he usually reserved for 1804 dollars - but he also noted that "the 1802 half-dime has always been considered as one of our very rarest of all U.S. silver coins, nearly in the same category as the 1804 dollar." It was not be until the 1978 discovery of an 1870-S half dime that the 1802 faced any competition as the most celebrated issue of the denomination.

Provenance: From the Dean Oakes Family Collection. Earlier from our (Bowers and Merena's) sale of the Walter H. Childs Collection, August 1999, lot 157; our Baltimore Auction of November 2012, lot 3064.

1804 Draped Bust Dime. JR-1. Rarity-5. 13 Stars on Reverse. VF-35 (PCGS). The 1804 dime has the lowest mintage for any Draped Bust dime, with 8,625 pieces struck and delivered in June of that year. However, it is widely thought that many of the dimes reported as delivered in September of 1805 were dated 1804. As a result, a more accurate production figure from 1804-dated dies is probably closer to 17,000 pieces as proposed by the authors of the standard work on the subject, Early United States Dimes 1796-1837 (1984). Regardless of the exact mintage for the issue, its rarity is beyond contestation with the authors of the Bust Dime Variety Identification Guide (2015) asserting that only 100 to 125 coins are extant throughout the numismatic grading scale.

Only two die pairings are known, both sharing the same obverse die, with the JR-1 marriage being the slightly more available of the two. In addition to absolute rarity, the 1804 JR-1 is a significant condition rarity that is almost always found in the lowest circulated grades. When one considers that the famed Norweb Collection's example was only VG-F and F.C.C. Boyd never managed to acquire a 13 Stars on Reverse 1804 dime, the acquisition of this Choice Very Fine coin as certified by PCGS would be a signature event for any early dime devotee.

Provenance: From the Dean Oakes Family Collection. Earlier from our (Bowers and Ruddy's) sale of the Garrett Collection for The Johns Hopkins University, Part III, October 1980, lot 1577.

1796 Draped Bust Quarter. B-1. Rarity-4+. VF-20 (PCGS). The Draped Bust, Small Eagle design type of 1796 represents the first year of the denomination - the dime of the same general design type also debuted in this year. Only 6,146 examples of this elusive quarter dollar issue were produced. Most of the examples known today are well worn, with many also exhibiting significant impairments such as holes or scratches. Competition is fierce whenever a problem-free and attractive example in a popular collector grade appears at auction, as here.

After this initial coinage of quarter dollars, it wasn't until 1804 that the Mint again received orders for this denomination from contemporary bullion depositors. The Spanish colonial 2 reales remained plentiful in U.S. commerce through at least the end of the 1820s, explaining the limited demand for its U.S. Mint alternative in the quarter dollar. By 1804, when production of this denomination resumed to a limited extent, the Small Eagle reverse had been supplanted by the Heraldic or Large Eagle style. The 1796 quarter is recognized as a rarity, and its status as a one-year design appeals to both early quarter specialists and advanced type collectors.

1820 Capped Bust Quarter. B-1. Rarity-4. Large 0. MS-64 (PCGS). CAC. The 1820 is the fourth date in the Capped Bust quarter series designed by John Reich. The mintage for that calendar year is 127,444 pieces, although we have no way of knowing whether or not that total corresponds to the mintage from 1820-dated dies. The early United States Mint often used dies randomly and until they broke irretrievably without regard for year of issue, as high quality steel for making dies was in short supply. With five die marriages known and examples among the more available Large Diameter Capped Bust quarters, some 1820-dated examples were likely also included in the reported delivery of 216,851 quarters achieved in 1821.

Provenance: From the Dean Oakes Family Collection. Purchased from A & A Coins, Inc., Iowa City, Iowa, date not recorded.

1835 Capped Bust Quarter. B-3. Rarity-3. MS-65+ (PCGS). CAC. Although more plentiful than its Large Diameter predecessor of 1815 to 1828, the Reduced Diameter Capped Bust quarter of 1831 to 1838 is still a challenging and underrated design type in the finest Mint State grades The 1835 B-3 die pairing is especially difficult to locate in Uncirculated condition, the 2010 Rea et al. census reporting only two examples at this level graded 60+ and 60 therein. The offered coin from the Dean Oakes Family Collection is a newcomer to the census, and while it may have a rival in the Davis-Graves - Winter coin listed as CC#2 in the Rea et al. census, we believe that it is the finest known example from these dies. It also appears to be the only Mint State 1835 B-3 offered at auction since the aforementioned CC#2 coin sold in our (Stack's) January-February 1974 sale of the Winter Collection; in recent years the best we have handled for this variety is an EF-45. Whether one is a high grade type collector or advanced early quarter variety enthusiast, the significance of this offering can hardly be overstated.

1794 Flowing Hair Half Dollar. O-101, T-7. Rarity-3. MS-61 (NGC). While today the half dollar is seldom seen in circulation and offering one up in change will often generate odd looks and questions, it is only relatively recently that this has been the case. Half dollars have traditionally been "workhorse coins intended for use in the channels of commerce," as Q. David Bowers described them. The reduction in the required surety bonds for the chief coiner and the assayer so that production of precious metal coins could commence came late in 1794 and in this first year, 23,464 (or fewer) pieces were made, as opposed to a much larger delivery of 299,680 pieces for calendar year 1795. Mintages plummeted thereafter and remained limited until 1805, as the silver dollar took precedence among bullion depositors in need of a large coin for domestic financial needs and use in the export trade. After the federal government halted production of the latter in 1805, the half dollar quickly established itself as the denomination of choice among silver bullion depositors, a situation that would continue well into the 19th century.

Of the 11 known die marriages of the 1794 half dollar, O-101 is the most frequently encountered. This is not to imply that this is a common variety, for the 1794 as an issue is scarce to rare in all grades, irrespective of die marriage. The first half dollars struck in the United States Mint were 5,300 examples delivered on December 1, 1794. All of these coins are assumed to have been struck from 1794-dated dies. The Guide Book, among other numismatic references, provides a mintage figure of 23,464 pieces for this issue, as above, which assumes that the 18,164 half dollars delivered on February 4, 1795, were also coined from 1794-dated dies. This is conjecture, and we will never know for certain whether the coins delivered on February 4, 1795, were dated 1794, 1795, or both. Based on the number of die marriages known for the 1794-dated issue, as well as the number of coins extant, it is likely that at least some of the coins delivered in early 1795 were from 1794-dated dies. We suspect that the actual mintage for this issue is somewhat less than 23,464 pieces, most of which have long since been lost to commercial use.

Provenance: From the Dean Oakes Family Collection. Earlier ex David Lawrence, October 2003; Eugene H. Gardner; Heritage's sale of the Eugene H. Gardner Collection, June 2014, lot 30463.

1796 Draped Bust Half Dollar. Small Eagle. O-102, T-2. Rarity-5+. 16 Stars. Fine-15 (PCGS). Amato 235. Tompkins Die Stage 3/2. Although composed of coins dated 1796 and 1797, the Draped Bust, Small Eagle half dollar series was issued for just one year. Only 3,918 examples were delivered in four warrants from February 28 to May 26, 1797. Today, probably no more than 300 half dollars of this challenging design type can be accounted for, signifying a survival rate of less than 10%. Subsequent to 1797 no half dollars were minted until 1801, at which time the Heraldic Eagle design was adopted for the reverse. The 1796 O-102 variety is the scarcest in this series with Very Fine representing the median grade among survivors. The present example is included in the extensive census published by Jon P. Amato in his 2012 reference The Draped Bust Half Dollars of 1796-1797, in which it is assigned Coin Serial Number 235. It is a noteworthy rarity that would do equally well in an advanced type collection or specialized early half dollar variety set.

Provenance: From the Dean Oakes Family Collection. Earlier from our (Bowers and Ruddy's) sale of The Garrett Collection for The Johns Hopkins University, Part I, November 1979, lot 275.

1797 Draped Bust Half Dollar. Small Eagle. O-101a, T-1. Rarity-4+. 15 Stars. Fine-15 (PCGS). CAC. Amato 430. Tompkins Die Stage 4/4. The 1797 half dollar is a profoundly enigmatic issue whose intrigue is only overshadowed by its scarcity. Echoing the symbolism portrayed by the flag of the United States, the earliest coins of the United States Mint depicted a star count that tried at best to mirror the number of states belonging to the Union at the time of striking. Fittingly so, the half dollars of 1794 and 1795 display 15 stars on the obverse - a number justified by Kentucky's admission on June 1st 1792. In anticipation of 1796's half dollar mintage, officials prepared a 1796-dated 15-star die for use, though no half dollars were struck in said year. However, by the time mintage resumed in the beginning of 1797, Tennessee had already joined the Union on June 1st of 1796 and a 16-stars motif was appropriate. Never to be wasteful, the Mint employed this wrongly dated and wrongly starred obverse, eventually transitioning to a 1796-dated 16-star obverse by some other combination of misguidance. Then, most curiously, a third die was created to finish out the 1797 half dollar production year; properly dated 1797, though ornamented with just 15 stars on the obverse. Several theories and conjectures have emerged to explain how this blundered regression might have occurred, though whether terribly complex or astoundingly simple, the error in star count for the 1797 Draped Bust half dollar has left numismatic scholars scratching their heads for the past two centuries.

Provenance: From the Dean Oakes Family Collection. Earlier from S.H. Chapman's sale of the Major Richard Lambert Collection, October 1910, lot 269; our (Stack's) sale of the Robison Collection, February 1982, lot 1526; our (Stack's) sale of the Dr. Alfred R. Globus Collection, December 1999, lot 1696.

1794 Flowing Hair Silver Dollar. BB-1, B-1. Rarity-4. VF-35 (PCGS). BB Die State III. On October 15, 1794, Chief Coiner Henry Voigt delivered 1,758 silver dollars to David Rittenhouse, representing the entire mintage for the year. The Mint's workmen could have struck all of these coins in a single afternoon, using a press ill-suited for the rigors of striking the large diameter dies. Rittenhouse later received $242.50 in half dollars, plus six half dimes, to complete the total initial deposit, but according to traditional numismatic wisdom the original mintage of 1794 dollars amounted to 2,000 coins. Proponents of this theory believe that the remaining 242 examples were judged to be underweight and/or too poorly struck to be released, the coins either remelted or used as planchets for 1795-dated silver dollars. At least one poorly struck 1794 dollar was used as a planchet for a 1795 dollar, but since that coin's discovery in the 1960s, no other examples have come to light. If the original mintage of the 1794 dollar was 2,000 pieces, the remaining 242 or so coins were almost certainly melted. Alternatively, the total mintage might be just 1,758 pieces, the failure of the press under the rigors of striking these large coins ending the day's work prematurely and prompting the chief coiner to make up the balance of Rittenhouse's bullion deposits in half dollars and half dimes, as related above. We will never know for sure because no details were recorded and no ceremony was held, despite the historical significance of the event.

Indeed, even those 1794 dollars that were deemed acceptable for distribution exhibit many of the coining difficulties suffered by the early United States Mint. Virtually all of the known examples are softly struck to one degree or another at the left obverse and reverse borders. This is due not only to the Mint's use of a press that was intended for smaller-size coins, but also because the dies eventually "slipped" and became misaligned in the press. On some 1794 dollars the misalignment is so pronounced that the date can be difficult to discern. Additionally, many examples display adjustment marks that represent the Mint's filing down of overweight planchets to make them conform to the legally specified weight range for this issue. While these adjustment marks are often innocuous, they are sometimes so numerous as to severely compromise one or more elements of a coin's design.

Provenance: From the Dean Oakes Family Collection. Earlier from S.H. and H. Chapman's sale of the Charles Ira Bushnell Collection, June 1882, lot 2434; Lorin G. Parmelee; Byron Reed; Spink America's sale of the Byron Reed Collection for the City of Omaha to Benefit the Western Heritage Museum, October 1996, lot 312; our sale of the Freedom Collection, August 2013 Chicago ANA Auction, lot 4305.

1797 Draped Bust Silver Dollar. BB-73, B-1a. Rarity-3. Stars 9x7, Large Letters. AU-55 (PCGS). BB Die State III, Salyards Die State II-III/I. Bowers-Borckardt 73 is the sole die marriage associated with the Stars 9x7, Large Letters Guide Book variety of the 1797 silver dollar, and it is the median scarcity among the three known die pairings of the issue. Plentiful in an absolute sense, at least by early dollar standards, Harry E. Salyards (2022) estimates that 500 to 850 BB-73 dollars are extant in all grades. With most survivors of this die pairing as a whole grading no finer than VF, the conditionally challenging nature of the BB-73 dollar comes to the fore at the EF level. The present example in PCGS AU-55 is a noteworthy condition rarity and among the finest certified available to today's numismatists.