RARE AND POPULAR 1845-O QUARTER EAGLE GRADED AU53 BY PCGS AND APPROVED BY CAC.

By a significant margin, the 1845-O is the rarest quarter eagle from New Orleans. Only 4,000 were made and while I am probably guilty of overstating the overall rarity of this date, there is no denying its rarity in the middle AU grades and higher, especially with natural color and choice surfaces.

This is an uncommonly attractive coin for the date and grade with rich green-gold and yellow coloration over surfaces with a good degree of remaining luster. There is some slight unevenness in the obverse fields which is as made and is the result of improper planchet preparation. I can't recall having seen a better AU53 example of this date in quite a while.

In the last decade only two PCGS AU53 1845-O quarter eagles have sold at auction. The most recent sale was Stacks Bowers 1/13: 12593 which realized $7,931 despite some questionable coloration while Heritage 10/11: 4659 brought $8,050 in spite of some obverse scratches. An NGC AU53 with CAC approval sold for $8,165 as Bowers and Merena 1/11: 1337.

This date becomes quite hard to find (and very expensive) in grades higher than AU53 to AU55 which means that the example offered here is more than sufficient for the majority of specialized New Orleans quarter eagle collections.

CAC has approved 3 in this grade with 8 finer.