1795 1/2C Lettered Edge, BN MS(PCGS#1009)

Spring 2026 Showcase Auction U.S. Coins

Auctioneer

Stack's Bowers

Lot Number

2010

Grade

XF45BN

Price

7,800

Lot Description

Manley Die State 1.0. Medium olive-golden with bold definition, excellent centering, and solid in-hand eye appeal. Magnification reveals a light scratch in the right obverse field, as well as a few other marks on that side, but the reverse is smoother, and neither side reveals significant distractions in-hand.<p>This issue introduces the Head of 1795 in the brief Liberty Cap half cent series. Although Breen attributed the device punch for this new Liberty portrait to Assistant Engraver John Smith Gardner, Bill Eckberg (2019) convincingly refutes this claim and concludes that it is the work of Mint Engraver Robert Scot. It was used for all half cent obverse dies prepared through the end of the Liberty Cap series in 1797. The punch included Liberty's portrait and the cap, but not the pole, which had to be hand cut into each working die - something that was not always done! The famous 1796 C-1 No Pole was created by this omission, although the several 1795 No Pole half cents in the Widmer Family Collection (see below) were struck from the same obverse used for the 1795 C-1 offered here, but after the die had been drastically reground, during which the pole was effaced. Planchet stock for most examples of the 1795 Lettered Edge variety is quite good, the blanks for the thick planchet pieces (as here) made from sheet copper rolled out from ingots.<p>Popular for type purposes, the C-1 variety trails only the C-6a as the second most plentiful of the date, and it is more readily obtainable than C-2a, the only other Lettered Edge die pairing of the 1795-dated issue. As the only die marriage that corresponds to the Lettered Edge, With Pole variety, of course, the inclusion of a 1795 C-1 half cent is required for completion of a half cent collection by <em>Guide Book</em> variety. Although Ronald P. Manley (1998) states, "Many high grade specimens of this variety are known, including some Mint States pieces," the latter are rare in with Eckberg accounting for only 15 to 20 in AU and Uncirculated grades. Such condition rarity means that a handsome Choice EF such as this - scarce in its own right - represents the finest that most collectors can realistically hope to obtain in a 1795 C-1 half cent.