Heritage World Coin Auctions
FUN Signature US Coin Sale 1251 4-6 & 8-9 Jan 2017
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Early Dollars
1794 $1 B-1, BB-1, R.4, XF40 PCGS. Ex: Childs-Miller. Martin A. Logies accounts for 137 distinctly different, genuine 1794 silver dollars in The Flowing Hair Silver Dollars of 1794. Since his book was published in 2010, a few new examples have appeared in the numismatic marketplace, examples with no prior provenance. The total population now is placed at just over 140 pieces. Those who peruse his book will learn about many of those pieces that are damaged in some way or another.
Since the Logies book carefully documents every known example, we will not repeat that information here in the form of a census. However, we can confidently report that just six Mint State examples and 12 AU pieces are known. Four of the 12 AU examples are cleaned, tooled, or otherwise flawed, leaving just eight pristine AU pieces for collectors. Logies continues to list 29 XF grade pieces, including a dozen that grade XF45, this piece and 10 others graded XF40, and seven that are cleaned or flawed in other ways. The Childs-Miller coin ranks among the top two dozen of the finest 1794 dollars.
Dappled gold and iridescent toning resides on lovely pewter-gray surfaces with radial adjustment marks extending inward from the obverse border from about 5 o'clock, clockwise to 12 o'clock. The adjustment marks and press settings created strike weakness at the left side, although use of a glass will reveal that every star is still visible. The reverse border has a trivial planchet flaw at 2 o'clock that makes a convenient pedigree identifier. Logies reports that this example is Die State III, showing clash marks on both sides.
Vermont native Walter Henry Childs (1852-1906), an eighth-generation American, was the great grandson of Jonathon Childs who served as a private from Massachusetts during the Revolutionary War. Walter Childs spent his entire career, 36 of his 53 years, as the head accountant for the Estey Organ Company. Upon his death, the Childs coin collection passed to Charles Frederick Childs (1875-1955), Frederick Newell Childs (1913-1991), and Charles Frederick Childs II.
In the 1999 catalog of the Childs Collection, family friend Kenneth Bressett wrote a remembrance "of the Childs Collection," and of his friend Newell Childs. Of the many hundreds of coins in the Childs Collection, Bressett mentioned just two, the 1804 Original silver dollar (graded PR68 PCGS) and the present 1794 dollar:
"When I learned that no thorough inventory had ever been made of the collection, I asked permission to catalog, grade and appraise the holdings. This we did as a team effort with him learning about the material, and me enjoying every coin with each seemingly more exciting than the last. I cannot forget his asking why the 1794 dollar was in worn condition while all the others were so nice. Actually it was in relatively high grade, but it just seemed to pale alongside the many other superb pieces."
Ex: Walter H. Childs Collection (Bowers and Merena, 8/1999), lot 439; Warren Miller Collection.
1794 $1 B-1, BB-1, R.4, XF40 PCGS. Ex: Childs-Miller. Martin A. Logies accounts for 137 distinctly different, genuine 1794 silver dollars in The Flowing Hair Silver Dollars of 1794. Since his book was published in 2010, a few new examples have appeared in the numismatic marketplace, examples with no prior provenance. The total population now is placed at just over 140 pieces. Those who peruse his book will learn about many of those pieces that are damaged in some way or another.
Since the Logies book carefully documents every known example, we will not repeat that information here in the form of a census. However, we can confidently report that just six Mint State examples and 12 AU pieces are known. Four of the 12 AU examples are cleaned, tooled, or otherwise flawed, leaving just eight pristine AU pieces for collectors. Logies continues to list 29 XF grade pieces, including a dozen that grade XF45, this piece and 10 others graded XF40, and seven that are cleaned or flawed in other ways. The Childs-Miller coin ranks among the top two dozen of the finest 1794 dollars.
Dappled gold and iridescent toning resides on lovely pewter-gray surfaces with radial adjustment marks extending inward from the obverse border from about 5 o'clock, clockwise to 12 o'clock. The adjustment marks and press settings created strike weakness at the left side, although use of a glass will reveal that every star is still visible. The reverse border has a trivial planchet flaw at 2 o'clock that makes a convenient pedigree identifier. Logies reports that this example is Die State III, showing clash marks on both sides.
Vermont native Walter Henry Childs (1852-1906), an eighth-generation American, was the great grandson of Jonathon Childs who served as a private from Massachusetts during the Revolutionary War. Walter Childs spent his entire career, 36 of his 53 years, as the head accountant for the Estey Organ Company. Upon his death, the Childs coin collection passed to Charles Frederick Childs (1875-1955), Frederick Newell Childs (1913-1991), and Charles Frederick Childs II.
In the 1999 catalog of the Childs Collection, family friend Kenneth Bressett wrote a remembrance "of the Childs Collection," and of his friend Newell Childs. Of the many hundreds of coins in the Childs Collection, Bressett mentioned just two, the 1804 Original silver dollar (graded PR68 PCGS) and the present 1794 dollar:
"When I learned that no thorough inventory had ever been made of the collection, I asked permission to catalog, grade and appraise the holdings. This we did as a team effort with him learning about the material, and me enjoying every coin with each seemingly more exciting than the last. I cannot forget his asking why the 1794 dollar was in worn condition while all the others were so nice. Actually it was in relatively high grade, but it just seemed to pale alongside the many other superb pieces."
Ex: Walter H. Childs Collection (Bowers and Merena, 8/1999), lot 439; Warren Miller Collection.