In the first installment of this multi-part feature, I discussed some of the gold dollar issues that are rarely seen with good overall eye appeal. In this, the second part, I am going to look at quarter eagles that do not generally come with good eye appeal. Note that I said “good eye appeal.” This doesn’t mean that I’m focusing on the rarest dates in the series.   
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In their recent October 2011 Pittsburgh auction, Heritage Auctions sold a comprehensive collection of Liberty Head quarter eagles. This collection contained many of the rarities in this series and I’d like to take this time to analyze the coins themselves and the results that they garnered. One of the rarest collectible Liberty Head quarter eagles is the 1841.   
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One of the things about the Christmas/New Year’s holidays is that they are a time of remembrance. If you are a coin dealer (and if you’ve been one for as long as I have…) this is a good time to sit around and get all nostalgic about interesting coins that you have seen or sold. I originally thought about writing an article that talked about the great U.S. gold coins that I have sold over the years.   
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I recently bought and sold a seemingly innocuous 1859-D quarter eagle that had a great degree of numismatic significance. Before I explain why, let me give you a little background on the specific coin and on this issue in general. This 1859-D quarter eagle has been graded as Fine-15 by PCGS. It is the single lowest graded example of this date seen by either service.   
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A few years ago, I wrote a blog about 1841 quarter eagles that basically stated that the currently-accepted belief that all of the known examples were Proofs was wrong. After recently being able to examine no less than four 1841 quarter eagles at one time, I am now totally convinced that this issue exists in two distinct formats. Numismatic tradition states that the 1841 quarter eagle was struck only as a Proof.   
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In the second part of this series on coins that I believe are truly rare but not fully appreciated I am turning my focus on an issue that is very interesting to me: the 1842 quarter eagle. 1842 is, in general, an interesting year for quarter eagles. Four mints produced these coins: Philadelphia, New Orleans, Charlotte and Dahlonega. The mintage figures ranged from a low of 2,823 at Philadelphia to a high of 19,800 at New Orleans.   
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