Owner Comments:
This piece is CAC green stickered for undisputed originality and premium quality eye appeal. The toning is a beautiful mixture of cinnamon, cherry red and fiery orange. It is likely an end of roll toner. The reverse is white, brilliant and frosty. The strike is very sharp for the issue with full thumb and branch separations, full skirt lines and full head on the obverse. The reverse boasts full eagle's breast feathers and trailing leg. The devices are quite clean and the fields appear to be smooth underneath the lovely toning. The fields are just swimming in pools of luster. I have been wanting to add at least one NGC Star coin to my set for some time, now, so I finally had the opportunity and I took advantage of it.
Pedigreed from my good friend Jack Henslee and purchased from NEN.
In general, The 1945 D is struck better than other Denver coins from the 1940s up until this point but many are still not completely struck. The luster is usually vibrant and frosty. Abrasions don't seem to be a problem, either, as most examples are not more than minimally abraded. Most coins are either white and brilliant, or else, lightly toned with gold and rose around the rims. Moderately toned examples are much more uncommon and vivid, beautifully toned examples, such as the present coin, are quite rare.
Important Varieties:
V 101-Doubled D South.
V 102-D tipped West with bar below D and die crack connecting U and S in TRUST.
Rankings and stats:
Ranked 14th of 20 in overall mint state rarity and 16th of 20 in high grade mint state rarity for the short set.
Ranked 59th of 65 in overall mint state rarity and 61st of 65 in high grade mint state rarity for the full set.
Only 16 NGC STAR examples exist for this issue with 9 in MS 66 and only 6 finer (5 in MS 67 and 1 in MS 68).
NGC Census is in MS 66 is 2147/270 and PCGS Population is 2316/218 as of 10/2016.
There are about 14,000 to 16,000 known in all mint state grades.
Mintage is at 9,966,800.