1802

The 1802 Draped Bust Dollar carries a 41,650-piece annual mintage at the Philadelphia Mint, the lowest of the 1801-1803 closing-period production years. The 1802 carries the standard Heraldic Eagle reverse with 13 obverse stars and the Robert Scot engraving of the Gilbert Stuart obverse portrait. The continued low production reflects reduced silver-dollar coinage as the Mint redirected silver bullion toward subsidiary denominations and as private depositors increasingly opted to receive their silver back in Mexican real form rather than American silver dollars.

Strike quality on the 1802 varies across the small production, with central definition on Liberty and the Heraldic Eagle often soft on the limited die work. Most surviving examples grade VG to VF from heavy circulation in the early 1800s, with PCGS, the Professional Coin Grading Service, and NGC populations clustering at F and VF. Mint State examples are scarce above MS62 and genuinely rare at MS65 and above. Die marriages are catalogued by the Bowers-Borckardt (BB) attribution system.

The 1802 is a regular common date that trades at meaningful premiums above the most common 1799 and 1800 issues at most grades, supported by the small mintage and the closing-period demand. The 1802 pairs with the 1801 and 1803 as the matched closing-three-year Heraldic Eagle Draped Bust trio, and the separately catalogued 1802 2 over 1 Overdate provides specialist variety interest. Authentication concerns center on cleaning, polishing, edge damage, and counterfeit detection; certified slabs from PCGS or NGC are the standard purchase route at higher grades. Pedigree research for Draped Bust Dollar varieties continues through the Bowers and Borckardt die-marriage catalog and recent specialist auction-house research, with new BB-attribution discoveries periodically refining the modern understanding of the 1795-1804 production years. For the early-1800s Draped Bust production wind-down context and the broader Robert Scot engraving history, see the Draped Bust Dollar series history.