1795 2 Leaves

Two leaves below each of the eagle's wings, rather than three, separate this 1795 Flowing Hair dollar from the more familiar reverse variant struck in greater numbers the same year. The leaf count is a die-recognized distinction catalogued under the Bowers-Borckardt attribution system (BB), the standard reference Q. David Bowers and Mark Borckardt published in 1993 to organize early American silver dollar die marriages. The Two Leaves reverse is roughly three times scarcer than the companion Three Leaves type, though both share Robert Scot's portrait of Liberty with windswept tresses and the Type 1 Small Eagle perched within a wreath. Scot, the Mint's first Chief Engraver, drew on a Joseph Wright precedent for the Liberty bust, and this same Small Eagle reverse motif carried through to 1798 across the early Draped Bust series before yielding to the heraldic design.

Most Two Leaves examples encountered today trace to die marriage B-1, BB-21, the workhorse pairing classified Rarity-2 and second in overall availability only to BB-27 among 1795 Flowing Hair dies. Strike quality on BB-21 is generally above average for the type, with the obverse hub showing crisp curl detail and the reverse retaining sharp wreath leaves before late die states soften the eagle's breast feathers. Scarcer Two Leaves marriages include BB-15, BB-20, and BB-22, all of which trade at meaningful premiums over BB-21 in equivalent grades. Authentication hinges on the planchet itself: the legal standard weight was 26.96 grams of .8924 fine silver, and underweight blanks were often corrected at the Mint by drilling a center hole and inserting a small silver dowel before striking. Between 30 and 100 BB-21 coins are known with this Silver Plug feature visible as a flat circular disturbance near the centers, and that subset commands a substantial premium even at circulated grades. The lettered edge reading HUNDRED CENTS ONE DOLLAR OR UNIT should be examined for tooling on any high-grade candidate, since rim repairs are a recurring problem on early dollars sent for cleaning.

Within the Flowing Hair classification this issue is graded under PCGS (Professional Coin Grading Service) and NGC type sets as a regular-issue dollar, not a key date, but BB-21 is the most accessible entry point into the short-lived two-year series before the Draped Bust replacement arrived later in 1795. For die-marriage context and the broader story of the design's brief production window, see the Flowing Hair Dollar series history.