How Rare is the 1801 Draped Bust Dollar?

The run of Draped Bust Dollars with the Type 2 Heraldic Eagle reverse from 1798 through 1804 pertains to a relatively short span of coins. However, it is arguably the busiest bunch of so-called Early Dollars, which trace further back to 1794 and include the first United States silver dollars ever made. The rarest of them all is the famous 1804 Dollar, the so-called “King of American Coins,” which serves as the iconic posterchild for the series. Only 15 of those 1804-dated dollars were made, and all were produced at least three decades after their date otherwise suggests.

And while the 1804 dollar is certainly the rarest of these large silver coins bearing the Draped Bust design by Robert Scot, there are other dates in the series deserving of one’s attention. To be sure, all Draped Bust Dollars are scarce coins, even in the lowest of circulated grades, and they’re decidedly rare in Mint State condition.

Of the Draped Bust Dollars paired with the Heraldic Eagle design, the most common dates as determined by mintage figures include the 1798, 1799, and 1800 issues, with production totals of 327,536, 423,515, and 220,920, respectively. The latter three circulating issues – 1801, 1802, and 1803 (dollars dated 1804 were not made for use in commerce) – each come in significantly under 100,000 apiece.

The 1801 Draped Bust Dollar saw 54,454 examples struck, 1802 yielded 41,650, and 1803 delivered 85,634 specimens. It really doesn’t take a mathematician to understand that the 1802 Dollar has the lowest mintage, but it may require some deeper numismatic insight to know that it’s the 1801 Dollar that is overall the rarest of that group today. Why?

Of course, the 1802 Dollar mintage of just 54,454 is low no matter how one slices and dices it. But the numbers themselves don’t tell the whole story. Numismatic expert Walter Breen wrote in his seminal work Walter Breen’s Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins that “part of [the 1801 Dollar’s] reported mintage was dated 1800.” Exactly how many 1800 Dollars may have been included in that 1801 Dollar mintage is unknown. However, numismatic historians are confident that this indeed is the case, particularly since it was common in those days for the U.S. Mint to strike coins bearing the previous year’s date.

Regardless of the precise total of 1801 Dollars, history also shows that the early silver dollar – a coin representing the average daily wage for an American worker in the late 1790s and early 1800s – didn’t circulate well. What’s more, many Draped Bust Dollars were shipped off for trade in Asia and were later melted there. Comparatively few Draped Bust Dollars stayed behind in the United States. For the type, estimates suggest as little as 3% to 5% of the original mintage of Draped Bust Dollars remain today. Of these many, if not most, are cleaned, holed, or bear some other form of damage. Original, problem-free surfaces are the exception rather than the rule with Draped Bust Dollars. And but a tiny handful of any single date remains uncirculated.

PCGS estimates there are just 2,000 examples of the 1801 Draped Bust Dollar around today in all grades, with only 15 in MS60 or better and just 2 grading MS65 or higher. It should be noted that these figures are far lower than they are for the 1802 Dollar, which – as highlighted above – brags the lower mintage. PCGS reflects a surviving total of 3,500 for the 1802 date (including all varieties, such as the 1802/1 Overdate); in uncirculated grades the 1802 Dollar is estimated to offer 80 specimens. Again, these figures far exceed the survival estimates for the 1801 Dollar, and such stats for the other Draped Bust Dollars dated 1798 through 1803 only point upward from there.

Low survival numbers for the 1801 Dollar certainly bear out in the marketplace today. For example, should one check out Collectors Corner at any given time for listings of Draped Bust Dollars, they’re bound to locate a bevy of issues dated 1798 through 1800, smaller bounties of 1802 and 1803 Dollars, and perhaps only a couple – with a dose of luck, maybe a few – 1801 Dollars. Similar results usually bear out on the bourse floor of any major coin show, where one will surely be hard pressed to find an 1801 Dollar – especially one with nice, original surfaces and encapsulated, to boot.

As of July 2021, PCGS has graded a total of 641 specimens dated 1801. Several dozen were graded in VG10 or lower, where prices orbit between $1,000 and $1,500. The majority of 1801 Dollars graded by PCGS are clustered in the mid-circulated grade range of F12 to XF40, with 415 accounted for there. Prices at that level start around $1,750 and ascend to $5,000. In uncirculated the 1801 Dollar becomes all the rarer and more expensive still, with MS61 specimens taking $35,000. One of the highest prices ever realized for an 1801 Dollar is $246,750, the amount paid in 2020 for a specimen grading PCGS MS65 and hailing from the famed Bruce Morelan Collection. PCGS Set Registry collectors scramble to score these high-end pieces on the rare occasion they cross the auction block.

Sources

• Breen, Walter. Walter Breen’s Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins. Doubleday, 1988.
• “Discovering Scarcity of 1801 Draped Bust Dollar.” Numismatic News. October 30, 2018. Accessed July 13, 2021.
• Taxay, Don. The U.S. Mint and Coinage. Arco Publishing, 1966.