1838-O Capped Bust Half Dollar

A mint built for southern silver

On March 3, 1835, Congress approved $200,000 to build a branch mint in New Orleans that would coin both gold and silver. The same law put the branch mints under the authority of the Mint Director in Philadelphia and required a way to tell each mint's coins apart while keeping one national standard. The answer was a letter for each mint city, and the O of New Orleans became one of the best known marks in American coin collecting.

New Orleans was the commercial gateway of the Gulf South, and large amounts of foreign silver, much of it from Mexico and the West Indies, passed through the city. That silver did not always suit American banks or trade. The half dollar was then the largest and most important silver coin in everyday circulation, so turning foreign silver into half dollars became a central goal for the new branch.

Philadelphia shipped dies south on April 9 and April 11, 1838, and New Orleans received 12 dies on May 3: two pairs each for half dimes, dimes and half dollars. The reverse design had just been revised for 1838, with the denomination now spelled HALF DOL. instead of 50 CENTS, and the obverse carried a prominent O above the date.

Rufus Tyler's improvised press run

The New Orleans Mint opened with dimes. A first run of 30 pieces was struck on May 8, 1838, and many went out as presentation pieces, one of them to Mint Director Robert M. Patterson. The small press broke down repeatedly, and yellow fever closed the mint from August through October. By year's end the official report showed only dimes, 402,434 of them, and no half dollars.

On January 17, 1839, Patterson wrote to Superintendent David Bradford that 'no time should be lost in getting ready for the coinage of half dollars.' The proper half dollar press was not yet running and no 1839-dated half dollar dies had arrived. So Chief Coiner Rufus Tyler tried the leftover 1838 dies in a medium-sized press intended for gold coins. On February 25, 1839, he reported to Patterson that the bottom dies were too short to be secured, but 'I have however, spliced one of them in order to try the press and succeeded in making ten excellent impressions, the very first one struck being as perfect as the dies and entirely satisfactory.' Then the added piece came loose.

Bradford's letter of March 7, 1839, placed the trial 'about the middle of January.' On March 27, Tyler got the real half dollar press working. Kevin Flynn and John Dannreuther found correspondence in the National Archives pointing to a second small striking of 1838-dated coins after that, probably for presentation. The 1838 obverse dies were defaced on June 13, 1839. The 1838 reverse die went on to strike most of the 1839-O half dollars, and some 1839-O coins show that reverse in an earlier state than most 1838-O pieces do.

Years later a note from Tyler surfaced with a coin he had given to Alexander Dallas Bache: 'It may be proper to state that not more than twenty pieces were struck with the half dollar dies of 1838.' Tyler's ten from January plus a later presentation run is the usual way of reconciling his two numbers. Flynn's own estimate is 11 to 15 struck.

New Orleans or Philadelphia?

Not everyone accepts the New Orleans story in full. In a 2012 monograph, The Surprising History of the 1838-O Half Dollar, David Stone and Mark Van Winkle argued that most survivors were struck at Philadelphia in early 1838 as showpieces for the new mintmark, and that Tyler's ten were a second, separate striking. They noted that the coins appear to have been struck on screw presses while New Orleans had been sent steam presses, and they quoted the 19th-century dealer Édouard Frossard, who insisted the coins were 'struck at Philadelphia as a pattern for the Orleans mint.'

Others reject the Philadelphia theory, citing Tyler's letter and the lack of any contemporary notice of a mintmark showpiece. Die evidence is part of the argument too: the Smithsonian's example shows the latest die state of the nine known and a strongly mirrored reverse, which Flynn and Dannreuther read as the product of the March 1839 run.

The finish is also unsettled. Collectors long called these coins proofs, and the grading services certified them as proofs or branch mint proofs. The current die variety reference, by Dick Graham, classifies the 1838-O as a specimen striking. Dannreuther believes most were struck on unpolished blanks, which would make them specimens, while allowing that some coins of the second group could be proofs. The sources agree on one point: no regular production of 1838-O half dollars ever took place.

Nine coins and a century of famous owners

The 1838-O was a rarity from the day it was struck. Its first known public sale came in October 1867, in the collection of the pioneer collector Joseph Mickley, where it was described as 'splendid proof, rare' and brought $2.75. The mintmark pioneer Augustus Heaton later wrote that fewer than a dozen were known.

In the 20th century Colonel E.H.R. Green is reported to have owned at least six of them, most of the known population. From his holdings they scattered into the cabinets of Louis E. Eliasberg, Sr., William Cutler Atwater, Will W. Neil and others. One example went from the New Orleans Mint to Director Patterson and into the Mint Cabinet, and it is now in the Smithsonian's National Numismatic Collection.

Prices climbed slowly and then steeply. Examples sold for a few thousand dollars in the 1950s, $14,000 in 1967, $93,500 for the Norweb coin in 1988 and $121,000 for the Eliasberg coin in 1997. The PR64 coin in this entry sold for $632,500 in June 2005 and for $734,375 on January 10, 2013, then a record for the issue. A year later, on January 9, 2014, the Eliasberg PR64 brought $763,750, the auction record the grading service still lists. The Cox-Robison specimen, off the market since the 1980s, sold for $504,000 in November 2019.

The coin in this entry was offered again in April 2025 from the collection of Bruce S. Sherman, principal owner of the Miami Marlins, and the catalog records it as not sold. Its early pedigree is contested. The 2013 catalog traced it to Colonel Green and the W.G. Baldenhofer collection of 1955. The 2025 catalog instead matched it to plates of the H.O. Granberg coin shown at the 1914 American Numismatic Society exhibition and of the Waldo Newcomer coin, and cited research by Saul Teichman and Wayne Burt that Green never owned it. Some of the same 1950 and 1953 sales also appear in published pedigrees of the Cox-Robison coin, so at least one of these chains is wrong.

How to tell one

Examples are catalogued as die variety Graham 1 (GR-1). The obverse shows the Capped Bust Liberty with an O mintmark above the date. When the Seated Liberty design replaced the Capped Bust on the half dollar in 1839, the mintmark moved to the reverse. The reverse reads HALF DOL. The edge is reeded.

The best coins have moderately reflective fields and full detail, with hair curls, star centers, feathers and leaf veins sharp. Individual survivors are tracked by marks and die cracks. The Cox-Robison coin, for example, has a tiny oval depression left of star 7 and a reverse crack running from the left wingtip through HA in HALF to the base of the L.

Census figures differ by source. Specialists have traced nine distinct coins. Breen's 1988 Encyclopedia listed 11, and later researchers found duplications in his list. The grading service's survival estimate is six, while its own narrative says no more than 11 are known. The two grading services had certified 12 coins between them by early 2025, a figure that includes crossovers and resubmissions.

The numbers

Mintage

Not in Mint records. 'Not more than twenty' per Rufus Tyler; 20 is the figure usually listed; Flynn and Dannreuther estimate 11 to 15

Known survivors

Nine traced by specialists, one in the Smithsonian; Breen listed 11 in 1988; one grading service's survival estimate is 6

Weight

13.36 grams

Diameter

30.00 mm

Composition

90% silver, 10% copper

Edge

Reeded

Designer

Christian Gobrecht

Die variety

Graham 1 (GR-1)

Finest certified

64; none certified higher

Timeline

1. Mar 3, 1835

   Congress authorizes a branch mint at New Orleans to coin gold and silver.

2. Apr 1838

   Philadelphia ships dies to New Orleans on April 9 and 11, including two pairs of 1838 half dollar dies with an O mintmark.

3. May 3, 1838

   New Orleans receives 12 dies for half dimes, dimes and half dollars.

4. May 8, 1838

   The New Orleans Mint strikes its first coins, 30 dimes. The press soon breaks down.

5. Aug 1838

   Yellow fever closes the mint through October. No half dollars are struck in 1838.

6. Jan 17, 1839

   Mint Director Patterson urges New Orleans to get ready to coin half dollars.

7. Jan 1839

   About mid-month Chief Coiner Rufus Tyler strikes ten 1838-O half dollars on a medium press with a spliced die.

8. Feb 25, 1839

   Tyler reports the ten 'excellent impressions' to Patterson, the first written mention of the coin.

9. Mar 27, 1839

   The proper half dollar press begins striking; a second small group of 1838-dated coins likely follows.

10. Jun 13, 1839

    The 1838 half dollar obverse dies are defaced.

11. Oct 1867

    First known public sale: an example in Joseph Mickley's collection brings $2.75.

12. Jul 1894

    Édouard Frossard discusses Tyler's note to Alexander Dallas Bache, which says no more than 20 were struck.

13. 1914

    H.O. Granberg displays an example at the American Numismatic Society exhibition.

14. Nov 1988

    The Norweb example sells for $93,500 at auction.

15. Apr 1997

    The Eliasberg example sells for $121,000 at auction.

16. Jun 2005

    The PR64 coin in this entry sells for $632,500 at auction in Long Beach.

17. 2012

    David Stone and Mark Van Winkle publish their monograph arguing for a Philadelphia origin.

18. Jan 10, 2013

    The PR64 coin in this entry sells for $734,375, then a record for the issue.

19. Jan 9, 2014

    The Eliasberg PR64 sets the auction record at $763,750.

20. Nov 15, 2019

    The Cox-Robison specimen sells for $504,000 at auction in Baltimore.

21. Apr 30, 2025

    The coin in this entry is offered from the Bruce S. Sherman collection and does not sell.

The world in 1838

• Jan 1838

  Samuel Morse gives his first public demonstration of the electric telegraph, at Morristown, New Jersey.

• May 25, 1838

  The forced removal of the Cherokee, the Trail of Tears, begins.

• Jun 12, 1838

  Iowa Territory is created.

• Aug 18, 1838

  The United States Exploring Expedition sails from Hampton Roads, Virginia.

• Sep 3, 1838

  Frederick Douglass, dressed as a sailor, boards a train in Maryland on his way to freedom from slavery.

• Oct 27, 1838

  Missouri's governor issues the order expelling all Mormons from the state.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1838-O Capped Bust Half Dollar is number 32 of 100 in the coins entries of the FLOAT 100. 96 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (29 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The 1838-O was struck in 1839. No half dollars were coined at New Orleans during 1838.
• The first ten were made on a press meant for gold coins, using a die Tyler lengthened with a spliced-on piece. The splice came loose after the tenth strike.
• The same 1838 reverse die went on to strike most of the 1839-O half dollars.
• One collector, Colonel E.H.R. Green, is reported to have owned at least six of the nine known coins.
• The first recorded sale, in 1867, brought $2.75. The record, in 2014, was $763,750.