WOLFEBORO, N.H. -- To the inexperienced eye, it's an old silver dollar. But to collectors, it's the Mona Lisa, the king of U.S. coins, the Holy Grail.
It's a pristine silver dollar dated 1804, and it's expected to attract bids of around $2 million at auction this month in New York."To a coin collector, this is something to say, 'Gosh, I've seen it,' " said Q. David Bowers, chairman of the Wolfeboro-based Auctions by Bowers and Merena. "Someone might travel a thousand miles to see one, for example, in the Smithsonian."
The coin was minted specially for a secret mission to the Middle and Far East, part of a set of U.S. coins presented to the sultan of Muscat (now Oman) as a gift for a trade treaty and pampered for more than a century and a half. A second set went to the king of Siam, now Thailand.
The sultan of Muscat dollar was one of eight such coins made in 1834 -- despite the 1804 date -- and shortly after and is in the best condition of the group, by far, Bowers said.
"Fortunately, all along the way it's been handled with the proverbial kid gloves," Bowers said. "There is not a scratch or a mark on it."
The other seven are in private collections or museums. Other "1804" dollars were made in later years but are not as notable as the original eight.
Collectors began calling sultan of Muscat silver dollar the king of U.S. coins in the 1880s, Bowers said.
"This is to numismatists (coin collectors) as, let's say, the Mona Lisa is to art," he said.
It is part of a collection of nearly 1,000 coins up for auction by Bowers and Merena on Aug. 30.
Bowers and Merena auctioned another of the original eight 1804 silver dollars in 1997 for $1.8 million, the highest price ever paid for a coin. The sultan of Muscat dollar is in better condition, said Raymond Merena, the company president.
"This coin is probably the biggest of the big deal coins," said Kenneth Bressett, editor of "A Guide Book of United States Coins" and co-author of "The Fantastic 1804 Dollar."
The story of the coin began with then-President Andrew Jackson's desire in the 1830s to win trade treaties in the Middle and Far East, where America was shut out by European nations.
A Portsmouth sea trader, Edmund Roberts, got himself appointed a special agent for a secret mission to rulers in the region.
He won trade treaties from the sultan and the king of Siam, and on a return trip with the ratified treaties Roberts carried gifts, including special presentation sets of U.S. coins ordered by Jackson for the two monarchs.
No silver dollars had been struck since 1803, but the U.S. Mint still had 1804-dated dies so it used them for new coins.
Bowers learned they almost didn't survive. In the auction catalog, he writes that Roberts' ship, the USS Peacock, ran aground and was attacked by pirates.
"In a truly harrowing adventure, Roberts and a few others were able to row to safety, narrowly escaping pursuing pirates, while the Peacock was left behind," he wrote. The ship was later refloated.