1805 O-112 Early Half Dollar, NGC AU50. The featured coin is a truly spectacular piece. Graded AU-50 by NGC, this coin is categorized as Overton 112 with an R-2 rating. Lovely red-brown toning clings to the obverse margin. Struck from boldly clashed dies. A truly historic coin with beautiful details!

Less than 10 years after the United States Mint was opened, the Draped Bust Heraldic Eagle half dollar started to be produced in 1801. The Draped Bust portrait of Liberty may have resulted from the intercession of President George Washington himself. Its designer, portraitist Gilbert Stuart, is best known today for his head of Washington. It's said that Stuart's model was Mrs. William Bingham, a Philadelphia socialite viewed by many contemporaries as the most beautiful woman of her day. Stuart's drawing was transferred to plaster by sculptor John Eckstein of Providence, Rhode Island, and Robert Scot, the Mint's Chief Engraver, executed the coinage dies.

The obverse of the Draped Bust Heraldic Eagle half dollar features thirteen stars that surround Miss Liberty. This represents a refinement of the earlier Draped Bust coinage, on which the number of stars varied from 15 to 16, depending on the number of states in the Union at the time. Rather than subject this element of the design to continual change, Mint officials settled on a number reflecting the 13 original colonies. The word LIBERTY appears above the portrait and the date below. Thirteen stars also appear on the coin's reverse, arrayed above the eagle. Chief Engraver Scot modeled the heraldic eagle after the one on the nation's Great Seal.

Unaccountably, however, he reversed the positions of the arrows and olive branch held in the eagle's claws, placing the warlike arrows in the symbolically more important dexter (or right) claw and the olive branch of peace in the sinister (or left) claw, thereby contravening the Founding Fathers. A ribbon bearing the motto E PLURIBUS UNUM hangs from the beak, with UNITED STATES OF AMERICA around the upper rim. On the edge is the statement of value: FIFTY CENTS OR HALF A DOLLAR.