Fascinating U.S. Civil War Era Engraved Presentation Silver Dollar

363, Lot: 463. Estimate $200. Sold for $7500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

UNITED STATES. AR Dollar (38mm, 26.01 g, 6h). Engraved presentation piece to Major Wm. C. Shaw, 38th Indiana Volunteers. Dated 1859. Liberty seated right, holding pileus on rod and shield at her side; thirteen stars around; 1859 (date) below / UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ONE DOL. around, This coin/was captured by/Jeff Davis at the/New Orleans mint 1861/Presented to/Major Wm. C. Shaw./38th Ind. Vet. Vol. Infy./by Mack in eight lines. Fine, toned. Apparently used by Major Shaw as a pocket piece.

Major Shaw is mentioned in “A Hoosier Regiment in Dixie: A History of the Thirty-Eighth Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment,” by Arville L. Funk (1978), where it is noted that “Major William C. Shaw, who had originally fled Kentucky in order to enlist in the Union Army, settled in New Albany, [Indiana]...”