The Flowing Hair Liberty Dollar, a silver coin from 1794, represents the first formal manifestation of US currency following the establishment of the United States Mint, has been put on a four-day display in Prague's National Museum (NM), Czech Republic.
The coin is presented together with a copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence from 1776.
US launched the production of the first dollars, made of silver, in 1794. A total of 1,758 such coins were produced and gradually put in circulation. However, a high number of them were defective as a result of technological mistakes.
Karen Lee, an American coin expert with the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., is accompanying the silver dollar on its European tour. She explained why the Flowing Hair silver dollar was so rare:
“They minted about 2,000, and about 1,873 went into circulation, and we believe, more or less, that there are 20 known now. And this one we believe is super-special because we believe it was the first one minted.”
Lee also acknowledged the Czech connection to the dollar, namely that the name derives from the Czech “Tolar” – or “Thaler” in German – a 16th century coin, which was minted in the Bohemian town of Jáchymov:
“We thank you for that, because you gave us the name of our coin, the dollar.”
The 1794 silver dollar sold for USD$10,016,875 in Stack’s Bowers Cardinal Collection auction on 24 January 2013. The rare coin was bought by collectors Legend Numismatics.
It is the finest known example of its kind, graded Specimen-66 by the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) and the Certified Acceptance Corporation (CAC), leading certifiers of a coin's condition.
The coin shows a profile of Miss Liberty facing right surrounded by stars representing each state in the union. The design was only used in 1794 and briefly the following year.
During February, the Flowing Hair silver dollar will be embarking on an eight-nation tour. The first stop is Prague’s National Museum, where it will be on display in the museum’s New Building until this Friday, February 10, from 10 am to 8 pm. Four years ago, this museum displayed what was then the most expensive coin in the world, namely a US 1933 gold Double Eagle.
After that, the 1794 coin travels on to Warsaw, Poland; Tallinn, Estonia; Helsinki, Finland; Stockholm, Sweden; Oslo, Norway; Dublin, Ireland; and finally London, England.
Source: AP News
