SCARCE AND IMPORTANT PCGS AU53 1861-C HALF EAGLE

The 1861-C half eagle should travel in the same league as its counterpart the 1861-D when it comes to demand and respect but it lags its Southern cousin for a number of reasons. The 1861-C is an important final-year-of-issue with Civil War affiliation and it is finally beginning to creep up in price; although it is still priced at a fraction of the 1861-D.

This deep green-gold and orange example shows alot of luster beneath the color and it is well defined for the issue. There are some old hairlines at the lower portion of the obverse but these are mostly hidden by the depth of the richness of the color. The strike is about average for the issue with weakness seen at some of the stars on the left but the reverse is fully detailed. This is clearly an early die state as the mint-made engraver’s lines above RIC in AMERICA are clearly visible with a 5x glass.

There has been just a single PCGS AU53 1861-C half eagle sold at auction since 2006 (that’s 14 years ago for those of you with subpar math skills) and it fetched $11,163 as Stacks 7/2015: 6038. Only one PCGS AU55 has sold at auction in recent years and it made $18,000 in January 2019.

I recently offered a nice PCGS/CAC VF35 1861-C half eagle and the number of inquiries I received from it almost broke the internet. Clearly, this is a popular issue and it is one of the few Charlotte half eagles—along with the 1838-C and the 1839-C—which have multiple levels of demand.

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