1863 LIBERTY HEAD $20 MS61

WELL STRUCK WITH LUSTROUS SURFACES. JUST 12 COINS GRADED HIGHER AT PCGS. The 1863 is the third rarest of the 17 Type I Double Eagle deliveries from the Philadelphia Mint. Survivors of this 142,790-piece delivery are elusive in all grades and particularly challenging to locate above EF. In the 2002 book " An Insider's Guide to Collecting Type I Double Eagle ," authors Douglas Winter and Adam Crum sum up this issue's rarity quite nicely when they state: "Perhaps the strongest statement one can make about the rarity of the 1863 Double Eagle is that the finest business strike in the fabulous Harry Bass collection, sold at auction between 1999 and 2000, was a cleaned Extremely Fine." To the best of our knowledge, the 1863 has never been widely represented in any hoards that have entered the market from time to time over the years. Even the shipwreck of the S.S. Republic has yielded only 26 examples in grades that range from AU-58 through MS-63. (For comparative purposes, we report that more than 300 examples of the 1865 have so far been discovered as part of the same treasure.)