One of the most remarkable things about a truly remarkable coin, the 1861 Confederate halfdollar, is that not a single example sold at auction until October 2003. Even private transactionswere rare; none have been known to have occurred since the 1970s.

Rarity alone (four examples are known) probably cannot account for the infrequency of the coin'sappearance in the marketplace. Examples of the 1913 Liberty Head 5-cent coin, five known, sell withsome regularity. Two examples of that coin have made three auction appearances in the past fiveyears..

This long history of infrequent availability is what makes the twin announcements from thenation's two biggest rivals in the numismatic auction business - Stack's Bowers Galleries andHeritage Auctions - that each will offer an example for sale in the first quarter of 2015 trulyremarkable.

One has to look back more than a century, to the period from 1910 to 1912, to find a time whentwo pieces (the only ones then known) were offered for sale in close proximity.

In January, Heritage Auctions will offer the coin currently owned by Donald G. Partrick, whoseownership of the piece was publicly revealed only on Oct. 30. That is when Heritage announced thatcoins from his collection would begin appearing at auction in 2015.

Partrick's coin is the former John J. Ford Jr. specimen, which in October 2003 became the firstoriginal Confederate half dollar sold at public auction. That coin brought $632,500 in Stack's 2003sale.

The coin being offered by Stack's Bowers Galleries in March 2015 disappeared between itsstriking in 1861 and its reappearance in 1970, when it surfaced in New Orleans. Until now, thatexample has never been offered at auction.

The other two examples of the coin are in institutional collections - the American NumismaticSociety holds one, as does the Eric P. Newman Education Foundation.

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Two original Confederate half dollars will make history in early 2015 with auctions(www.coinworld.com/insights/two-confederate-half-dollars-in-two-auctions-in-early-2015.html)