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Coins/ Dollars / Early Dollars/ 1804 Class I

FINENESS .8924ASW 0.77344 OZT26.96 G

Overview History First Mint Die Marriages Key Dates 1804 Dollar Collecting Grading Checklist References

Issue RecordCROWNPhiladelphia89.24% Silver1 of 15 issues

1804 Class I Draped Bust, Heraldic Eagle Dollar

Struck c. 1834–35 for diplomatic presentation sets, not in 1804. PCGS's survival estimate is 8 and its mintage field also reads 8 — for this issue the two are the same number. It is the only coin in the series whose EXISTENCE is the subject, and the reason the series has a literature at all. Auction record $7,680,000 for the PR68 Watters–Childs coin, August 2021.

1804 Class I early dollars — obverse, graded PR58

1804 Class I early dollars — reverse, graded PR58

The numbers, and what kind of numbers they are

Every figure carries its evidence class. Press a class to open the record behind it — what it rests on, by what method, and what the series says you should not conclude from it.

RECORDED DELIVERY

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The Mint recorded what the Chief Coiner DELIVERED in a calendar year, not what it struck bearing a date. Where the registry combines years, the split is a reconstruction and the class says so.

DATED ATTRIBUTION

What the trade assigns to coins bearing this date. A modern allocation by an outside authority, not a federal record.

ESTIMATED SURVIVORS

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No STRUCTURED census exists for this series yet — not because none has been published, but because the published estimates live in the key-date prose and were never carried as figures with their own attribution and date. Retyping them here would be authoring data from downstream text, so the slot stays empty until the research leg structures them.

Specifications

SpecificationValue

DENOMINATIONDollar

DESIGNERRobert Scot

COMPOSITION89.24% silver, 10.76% copper — 371¼ grains of pure silver in 416 grains of standard silver

WEIGHT26.96 g

SILVER CONTENT0.77344 ozt

DIAMETERNot fixed by statute. The Act of April 2, 1792 specifies the dollar's weight and fineness and says nothing about its diameter; surviving coins run to roughly 39–40 mm.

EDGELettered — HUNDRED CENTS ONE DOLLAR OR UNIT

MINTPhiladelphia only — the first and, until 1838, the sole United States mint

MINT MARKNone. No branch mint existed, so no early dollar carries a mint mark.

DIE MARRIAGESone obverse, one reverse

From the book

Chapters that cite a document this coin's figures rest on. The same source id, reached from the other direction.

CHAPTER FIVEThe Ledger and the Date
The Mint counted deliveries, never dates — and confusing the two columns manufactured the most famous coin in America.CHAPTER SIXPresents for Kings
The Mint's cabinet had no 1804 dollar in 1838 — because the coins were only then being made, as gifts for a Sultan and a King.CHAPTER SEVENThe Census-Taker of Brooklyn
John A. Nexsen ran an eighteen-year census of the most disputed coin in America, found the decisive evidence, and repudiated his own theory in print.CHAPTER EIGHTThe Fakes, Shown Openly
The ghost census, the shipwreck that never sailed, and the Mint as its own counterfeiter — the series' syllabus, photographed.

The primary record

Every document behind the figures above. Where OunceDesk holds a copy, the row opens it.

American Journal of Numismatics, vols. 23–25 (1888–91)
Held in the Archive · behind recorded delivery

PCGS CoinFacts
External authority — not held by OunceDesk · behind dated attribution

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