Owner Comments:
The 1796 No Star quarter eagle is the rarest major type coin in the United States series. With a estimated mintage of 963 pieces, survival estimates range from 88 pieces, on the “Coin Facts” site to no more than 200 pieces by the most liberal approximations. John Dannreuther estimated that 104 to 131 pieces have survived spread over two varieties. This survival amount, which is high for the period, (for early gold coins it is often in the neighborhood of 5%) was undoubtedly enhanced by the “saved as the first of their kind,” phenomenon. Many of these survivors have been damaged by cleaning, polishing and jewelry use, which has limited the number of pieces that can receive a major third party authentication service grade.
This is the only early U.S. gold or silver coin that did not have stars surrounding the periphery of the obverse. The reason(s) for this omission have long been a subject of numismatic debate. Some have suggested that this omission was a reflection of laziness or expediency. Seventeen ninety six marked the only year in which the first United States mint produced all ten of the denominations that had been authorized by the Coinage Act of 1792. This ambitious production schedule called for an unprecedented demand for coin dies, which made die making shortcuts attractive. Therefore the omission of the stars might have been a shortcut.
Numismatic scholar, Q. David Bowers, has suggested that the no stars obverse was a reflection of designer Robert Scott’s esthetic opinion. The 1796 quarter eagle was first U.S. coin to have the heraldic eagle reverse. Since the stars around the head of the eagle stood for the states in the union, perhaps Scott thought that adding stars to the obverse was a redundancy. It should be remembered that the 1796 half eagles ($5) and eagles ($10) featured an eagle on a perch with no stars surrounding it. Therefore it might have seemed to Scott that the omission the obverse stars would be appropriate.
Robert Hilt advanced another theory. He speculated that the punch that the engraver used to sink the stars into the first obverse die broke before he was able to use it on a second die. Therefore this “defective” die without the stars was used to strike these first quarter eagles. Hilt supported his theory by noting that the obverse stars on subsequent quarter eagle dies, made after the 1796 with stars variety, are larger. Others have discounted Hilt’s theory with an obvious question, why use the no stars die first if a die with the stars was available?
At any rate the second 1796 quarter eagle die included the stars, and they would continue to appear on all U.S. gold coins until 1854 when the legend “United States of America” replaced them on the Type II gold dollar and the Three Dollar gold piece.
The coin shown above is well struck for the type with well defined central hair detail and a strong “E” in the word “LIBERTY” which is sometimes weak. There are a number of tiny marks in the fields which are consistent with the MS-62 grade. There are also some light adjustment marks partially hidden in Ms. Liberty’s hair. These marks are a reflection of the need to set the gold content of this piece the precise legal gold content. The reverse is stronger than the obverse which is almost always the case with early U.S. gold and silver coinage.
Recently I reviewed the PCGS “Coin Facts” site concerning this coin. It is currently tied for #8 in the condition census for the 1796 No Stars Quarter Eagle.