Boston-based auctioneers Bowers and Merena hammered down a $1 coin, the so-called Flowing Hair silver dollar, to an anonymous bidder for $1.2 million last weekend.

This rare coin is considered the fourth best specimen of the six mint 1794 silver dollars known to exist. The best specimen, called the Neil/Carter/Contursi 1794 Flowing Hair silver dollar, garnered nearly $7.9 million in May, setting a new record price for a coin.

"In the earliest years of this country and extending back into colonial times, this society was a cash-starved society," Jeff Ambio, of Bowers and Merena, told the Christian Science Monitor. "There was very little circulating coinage. What little there was, the vast majority wasn't made over here."