JR-3, R-4.

The 1803 dime is available in grades up to and including Very Fine but it is rare in properly graded Extremely Fine and very rare in About Uncirculated, especially with natural color and choice surfaces. In Uncirculated, I am aware of just one or two known, the finest of which is the Pogue coin (graded MS64 by PCGS) which last sold for $322,000 (as an NGC MS64) in the Ed Price collection.

This is a remarkable coin with a pedigree which dates back to 1895 and it is the finest 1803 dime I have owned. It is well detailed in spite of a number of severe obverse cracks and both sides are noticeable clashed. The color is an attractive “old silver” hue with deeper color at the obverse border and across much of the reverse. There is some remaining luster (an extremely unusual occurrence for this issue). This coin has been in an AU55 holder for at least two decades and, if anything, it is a bit conservatively graded by today’s standards.

A comparable 1803 Dime, graded AU58 by PCGS, sold for $35,200 as Stacks Bowers 7/13: 4080.

An extremely important coin for the early dime specialist or the early type collector who wants a Draped Bust type piece with character and eye appeal. The pedigree isn’t too shabby either…

CAC has approved just one 1803 Dime in this grade with two finer.

Ex: S.H. and H. Chapman’s Richard B. Winsor Collection sale, December 1895; J.M. Clapp; Clapp estate, 1942, to Louis E. Eliasberg, Sr.; Bowers and Merena’s sale of the Louis E. Eliasberg, Sr. Collection, May 1996, lot 1051; Oliver Collection; Heritage’s sale of August 2011, lot 7069 (where it sold for $18,400) and finally Stacks Bowers 2012 ANA: 11303 where it brought $25,300.