- B. Max Mehl
"In all the History of Numismatics of the entire world, there is not today and there never has been a single coin which was and is the subject of so much romance, interest, comment, and upon which so much has been written and so much talked about and discussed as the United States Silver Dollar of 1804."
"While there may be coins of greater rarity, (based upon the number of specimens known), - but none are so famous as the Dollar of 1804! This is due to the fact that this great coin was the first coin of United States mintage to have been recognized as the rarest coin of the United States, from the very beginning of American Numismatics, more than One Hundred years ago. And it is today, as it always has been, the best known and most sought-after coin, not only among collectors, but among the public in general as well."
This quote is from the 1941 auction catalog of the Dunham collection, cataloged by B. Max Mehl, a prominent coin dealer of the day. The Dunham collection included the famous "Dexter" specimen of the 1804 silver dollar. The quote gives us a clue as to why the 1804 Dollar is considered the "King." Writings about the 1804 Dollar have since reached a culmination with the 1962 publication of a complete book about this coin: "The Fantastic 1804 Dollar" by Eric P. Newman and Kenneth E. Bressett.
Mehl used "The King of American Coins" as the title for his 14 page section on this coin in his auction catalog, but no one knows for sure who started using the term, "King," nor when. It was used very early on (remember, the 1804 Dollar was minted many years after the year 1804).
When James V. Dexter, the namesake for the "Dexter Dollar," purchased his coin in 1885, the S.H. & H. Chapman auction catalog for that sale described the 1804 Dollar this way: "There is no other coin in the United States series which has such a widespread and acknowledged great value and rarity, or which adds so much numismatic glory to a collection, as the King of American rarities - the 1804 dollar."
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