2011-S Vicksburg, Silver Proof

Thomas Cleveland's reverse for the 2011-S Vicksburg Silver Proof renders the USS Cairo, the Union ironclad gunboat sunk in the Yazoo River on December 12, 1862 and raised from the riverbed in 1964 for restoration and display at Vicksburg National Military Park. The issue is the fourth of the 2011 silver proof slate, struck at San Francisco on a 90% silver, 10% copper planchet at 6.25 grams. The Mint reported 524,681 silver proof sets sold for 2011, the production anchor on every silver entry that year. The Cairo composition is the second Civil War subject in the 2011 silver slate after Gettysburg, but the vessel's distinctive sloped-armor profile gives the reverse a sharply different visual signature from the figural Pennsylvania monument design.

Authentication on the issue rests on the 6.25-gram weight against 5.67 grams for the parallel clad proof, the half-gram spread any precision scale resolves cleanly. The reeded edge reads solid silver around the perimeter without the reddish copper-core line a clad strike shows at an angle. PCGS, the Professional Coin Grading Service, and NGC, the Numismatic Guaranty Company, label the slab insert with Silver or the S/Ag abbreviation alongside the proof designation. Cameo (CAM) and Deep Cameo (DCAM) are the two contrast tiers, and DCAM is the default outcome on the coin because the working dies receive a chemical etch before each press run. The relief on the Cairo's gun ports, sloped casemate armor, and smokestacks are the strike grading diagnostic points, with the planar geometry of the ironclad's hull requiring careful die polish to keep the field-to-device boundary crisp.

The collector market treats the issue as a 2011 silver-set component priced against the silver-content floor, with PR69-DCAM examples a modest premium over the 0.1808 ounce silver-weight value and PR70-DCAM examples a tier above. Single-design demand on Vicksburg pulls from a smaller buyer base than Gettysburg because the Cairo subject reads less broadly to general history collectors than the Gettysburg monument. Silver proof set mintage softness through 2011 gave the issue a thinner print run than the 2010 silver group while pricing remains within the modest range typical of the modern proof market. For the broader story of the ATB Silver Proof program and the series' production arc, see the Washington ATB series history.