1877 Patterns - PR PR64BN

History

Philadelphia turned out an unusual volume of experimental coinage in 1877, in the period just before the Bland-Allison Act and the 1878 Morgan dollar. Mint Director Henry Richard Linderman oversaw a pattern program whose output was not always tied to official proposals, and he assembled a substantial personal collection of patterns and restrikes while in office. Copper patterns of this period were marketed quietly to favored collectors rather than sold through any official channel, and engravers and other Mint personnel are known to have taken pieces from Mint property and passed them on. George T. Morgan's Liberty head alone accounts for 17 distinct 1877 pattern designs and 44 possible half dollar die combinations, which gives some sense of the scale of the year's experimentation.

Details

Judd-1500 is a quarter dollar struck in copper at Philadelphia in proof format, carrying the design known as the Sailor Head. Because the piece was struck in copper, it is graded with the standard copper color designations of BN, RB and RD, with brown the usual state for surviving examples. The Professional Coin Grading Service certifies the issue under its own catalog entry, number 61835, within the 1874 to 1879 pattern group.

Features

The Sailor Head design was tried at two denominations in 1877 and in two metals at each, with the quarter dollar in copper at J-1500, the half dollar in silver at J-1501 and the half dollar in copper at J-1502. Mint practice of the period called for the silver striking to serve as the official trial, with copper off-metal strikings produced alongside it, and it is the copper pieces that mostly reached collectors' hands. Surface treatment is a recurring complication among 1877 copper patterns, since gilt and plated surfaces appear on pieces from the same program and the origin of such finishes, whether applied at the Mint or afterward, is not always clear.

Notable facts

• Within the Judd sequence for these years, J-1500 is the only quarter dollar, as every number that follows it into the J-1540s is a half dollar.
• The 1877 pattern numbers conclude with the half unions at J-1546 through J-1549.
• Pattern rarity is customarily expressed as a Judd rarity rating and a surviving-population estimate rather than as a Mint production figure.
• Conventional die-variety study has little application to pattern issues, where the distinguishing attributes between Judd numbers are metal and edge type.
• The Pittman Act meltings had no bearing on pieces like this one, since that statute covered silver dollars rather than copper patterns.