Lancaster, Pennsylvania silversmith Peter Getz created a remarkable series of pattern half dollars in 1792, with a military bust of Washington facing left on the obverse, the legend G. WASHINGTON PRESIDENT. I. around, and the date below. The reverse shows a version of the Great Seal of the United States, featuring a heraldic eagle with an olive branch in the right talon and six arrows in the left. There are 15 stars in the field around the eagle's head and the legend UNITED STATES OF AMERICA shows around the border. Q. David Bowers suggests these patterns were produced in response to Robert Morris's proposal of December 21, 1791, suggesting a presidential portrait be used on American coinage. George Washington's well-known opposition to that idea undoubtedly doomed the project. One of the most historically central of the Washington pieces, coined in Philadelphia in early 1792 to meet the standards of the Senate version of the Mint Act of 1792. Getz, a young Lancaster silversmith, engraved the dies in hopes of obtaining work at the nascent United States Mint. Though copper strikes from these dies are similarly interesting, these dies were conceived and produced especially to strike silver coins, and their designs are those proscribed by the Senate for use on silver and gold pieces. By the terms of that version of the bill, eventually defeated by the House version, cents would have expressed "the denomination of the piece," unlike silver coins, which would look just like this. Though a fair number of the copper strikes from these dies exist (more than 55 by George Fuld's count), just 22 discrete silver specimens have been identified by Fuld, of which seven are permanently impounded in institutional collections. At least three of the survivors have been holed and plugged., including the piece in the Smithsonian. This example appears to have had some burnishing in the fields, long enough ago that the toning has a natural appearance. Some light scattered pits are seen around the date and in a vertical cluster right of second letter N in WASHINGTON, but the most significant work appears to have taken place in the left obverse field. The obverse is light gray with attractive light gold and pastel blue undertones, still a bit glossy from burnishing, but very attractive overall. None of the devices or legends appear to have been tooled. On the reverse, the fields show the same light burnishing, with a few tiny pits under the tail and one under AT of STATES. The central shield, soft from wear and strike, shows re-engraved stripe details, and the feathers have been similarly touched up. The edge of this piece is plain, and no obvious signs of undertype persist, though most (likely all) known specimens were created by overstriking either half ecus, half crowns, or four reales.