There’s a 16th 1804 Dollar—and It Will Be at the World’s Fair of Money

For every numismatist alive today, there was never a time when there wasn’t 15 known 1804 dollars—until now. The numbers have been carved in stone: eight known Class I dollars, a single overstruck Class II in the Smithsonian’s National Numismatic Collection, and six known Class III dollars, of which three are permanently impounded. Unbeknownst to the public, however, elite collector James A. Stack Sr. (no relation to Stack’s Bowers Galleries) held a magnificent Class III example in his collection, bringing the total of known 1804 dollars to 16.

Graded Proof-65 (CAC)(CMQ) by Professional Coin Grading Service, it is by far the finest Class III example in private hands. It is also the only 1804 dollar of any type to have received Certified Acceptance Corporation (CAC) or Collectible Market Qualified (CMQ) approval. 

In a landmark event, the 1804 and other early dollars will be joined by a phenomenal array of double eagles for the first auction of the James A. Stack Sr. Collection on December 9. No Class III 1804 dollar has sold at auction since Stack’s Bowers Galleries’ offering of the Berg-Garrett-Pogue example in March 2020, and no 1804 dollar of any kind has sold since August 2021, when the firm sold the finest known Class I 1804 dollar, the Childs-Pogue specimen, for a record price of $7.68 million.

A Well-Kept Secret

No American coin has been more thoroughly researched and written about than the 1804 dollar, including book-length studies by legendary numismatists Eric P. Newman and Kenneth E. Bressett (The Fantastic 1804 Dollar, 1962) and Q. David Bowers (The Rare Silver Dollars Dated 1804 and the Exciting Adventures of Edmund Roberts, 1999). Despite a battery of articles (including Bressett’s just-released September 2025 cover story of The Numismatist), catalog descriptions, and more, no numismatic expert had any inkling of the James A. Stack Sr. coin until the piece was consigned to Stack’s Bowers Galleries for auction.

“I have been fully involved with others in the effort to find records or information about the existence of this remarkable discovery,” says Bressett. “After searching through reams of data that I have on the subject, I concluded that there is no previous record of its existence.”

“Every professional numismatist has received innumerable wishful phone calls about 1804 dollars over the course of their career, and every single one has been easy to dismiss,” says Stack’s Bowers Galleries Director of Numismatic Americana John Kraljevich. “This piece took us all by surprise. It carries its own credentials with all the distinctive striking details we would expect of an 1804 Class III but all of the eye appeal we associate with the best of the Class I dollars.” 

Stack’s Bowers Galleries Executive Vice President Vicken Yegparian added, “The James A. Stack Sr. name has long been associated with the very finest coins, and past offerings have been highlights of our firm’s 90 years of auction sales. While this coin is a surprise to us all, no one is surprised that Mr. Stack would have owned a coin like this — or that he would have done so quietly.”

Highlights from the collection, including the 1804 dollar, will be on display at the ANA’s World’s Fair of Money® on August 19-23, as well as at future shows. To learn more about the James A. Stack Sr. Collection, visit Stack’s Bowers’ website.

A version of this article appears in the October 2025 issue of The Numismatist (money.org).