Going From $1 To $10 Million

How Research and Marketing Led To Numismatic Records

- Donn Pearlman

How does a coin go from a face value of $1 to a record-setting auction bid of $10,061,875? Yes, rarity, historical significance, and demand are crucial elements, but it also involved numismatic scholarship and effective promotion and marketing in this headline-making case.

The only 1794 Flowing Hair silver dollar certified as a special strike, PCGS SP66, is believed by many of the hobby’s respected experts to probably be the first dollar denomination coin struck in silver by the young United States Mint. There are perhaps only about 150 surviving examples of 1794-dated dollars out of 1,758 delivered by Mint Director David Rittenhouse. Each is important. They symbolically represented the financial independence of the recently self-governing United States.