Owner Comments:

The Flowing Hair – Small Eagle half dollar was the first type of 50 cent piece and the second silver coin to be issued by the United States mint. This design would appear for only two years, 1794 and 1795. The 1794 coins, which were delivered in December of that year, are scarce with a mintage of just 23,464 pieces. The 1795 half dollars are much more common with a mintage of just under 300 thousand pieces.

The 1795 half dollar is a fairly common coin relative to other early U.S. pieces, but many of the survivors are in low grade and many pieces have been damaged or improperly cleaned. I have also noted that many of these early dollars were weakly struck, which resulted in the loss of considerable design detail. The strike problems appear to be more severe for the half dollar than they were for the silver dollar and half dime, which bear the same design. Because of this, attractive pieces, like the one shown here, are very scarce and very much in demand.

The coin shown above is a very important piece. It is an Overton 120, which is listed as 1795 T-4 in the book by Steve Tompkins. It has a rarity rating of R-6 with less than 20 examples known. This is the finest known example of this rare variety with a grade of AU-58. The second finest known has EF sharpness, but has been cleaned. The third finest known pieces are two VF-30 graded coins.

The last auction appearance for this piece was in 2015. Heritage sold it at that time when it was in an NGC MS-62 holder. Subsequently it was cracked out and received a lower grade.