Lot Number 91
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1831 - O.120 R.6- PCGS AU 55
Ex Elton Dosier and Donald Parsley Elton Dosier found this coin at Norm and Bill Pullen’s table during the June 1976 Long Beach Show. Few dealers of the day attributed their bust halves. Elton spotted a telltale bulge in the left obverse field and plunked down the asking price of $150. Six years had passed since Don Gunnet discovered the variety, a bit too late to be included in the 1970 revised 2nd Edition of Al Overton’s standard reference. Fewer than a half dozen pieces were known. (Gunnet’s discovery coin, a scudzy VG-F, was lot 2 in my June 2003 sale, MB 28, then part of Floyd Farley’s unrivaled die variety collection.) Elton kept his coin until he passed away in March 1997. Dorothy Dosier asked me to handle the sale of Elton’s collection. Don and Bonnie Parsley parted with the Overton Collection in 1993. Don, however, could not resist the urge to continue collecting. Neither he nor Al Overton had owned an 1831 O.120. Would I make the coin available to him? Despite protests from other aspirants, including Charlton Meyer and Gehring Prouty, I offered the Dosier coin to Don.
After resting in but two collections over the past 47 years the coin makes its first appearance at auction. It was recently graded by PCGS, landing at no.2 in the Condition Census. Only 20 or so examples are known in all grades. The finest is a prooflike coin graded MS 62 by PCGS. It is currently owned by Dr. Charles Link, after passing through the collections of Bernard Edison (known as “R. Tettenhorst” to the numismatic community) and George “Buddy” Byers. The Dosier-Parsley coin is a brilliant, lustrous masterpiece with scant signs of actual circulation. Elton stored the coin in a brown kraft envelope; it includes his notes regarding the date, price and place of purchase. The envelope accompanies the lot.
Estimate: $25,000 and up
