Very few people can own an 1804 silver dollar, the rarity known as "The King of American Coins." Just 15 are known: seven are in museums, and eight are in private hands. Each is worthmillions. Wouldn't you love to own one? Most likely, that's not possible. But you can own a real link to the legend of the Dexter 1804 Dollar, a link that can be traced to circa 1887.

James Vila Dexter (1836-1899) was a wealthy banker who lived in Denver, Colorado. He was a collector par excellence. He owned some of the rarest and finest early American gold coins, copper andsilver coins of the highest caliber, and many important world coin rarities. Dexter also collected fine art and built a world-class collection of jewels and precious stones.

But of all his collectibles, his most prized possession was his 1804 silver dollar. Today it's simply known as the "Dexter Dollar," the legendary rarity with the mysterious"D" hidden on the reverse.

Dexter bought this coin in 1885 from an auction in Philadelphia that was cataloged by coin dealers S.H. and H. Chapman. It was the year after the Chapman brothers discovered and purchased thismysterious silver dollar in Berlin, Germany. How it got there, no one knows.

Through an agent, James V. Dexter successfully won the rarity at a new world record price - $1,000. The story of Dexter's purchase quickly circulated in newspapers throughout the country. Thenews started people searching for silver dollars dated 1804, but no other genuine examples are known to have been found.

J.V. Dexter was so proud of his coin that in 1887 he commissioned Denver artist and draughtsman Charles Stoll to commemorate his prized silver dollar in fine art.

Nearly lost to history, Dexter's original artistic masterpiece was discovered a century later, still in Denver, right before this same silver dollar sold again in 1989 for another world recordprice - an astounding $990,000! The price attained by the Dexter Dollar was a record for ANY coin sold at public auction and set the coin collecting world abuzz.

To celebrate the 1989 sale of the Dexter Dollar, professional numismatist Mark Ferguson, the discoverer of James V. Dexter's original 1887 masterpiece, published limited-edition lithographs ofthis beautiful work of art. A total of 1,804 limited-edition prints of J.V. Dexter's masterpiece were published and hundreds have already been sold to collectors worldwide.

Now, to commemorate the sale of the Dexter Dollar as part of The D. Brent Pogue Collection Part V, Stack's Bowers Galleries offers you the opportunity to acquire one of the last remaininglithographs of James Vila Dexter's 1887 masterpiece, "The Dollar of 1804."