The 1853-O Liberty double eagle claims a small mintage of 71,000 pieces, a much smaller production than any previous year at the famous Southern facility. Undoubtedly, some of the output from the California gold fields was held back, in anticipation of the opening of the San Francisco Mint the following year, rather than risking the hazardous maritime shipping necessary to have the bullion coined at New Orleans in 1853. The coins were all released into circulation at the time of issue, making the 1853-O an elusive issue in high grade.
The NGC population is 57 with 92 graded higher.
Listed at $14,400 in the CDN CPG and $12,750 in the NGC price guide.
Offered at $12,000
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The 1910-S Indian eagle’s high mintage of 811,000 coins is deceiving. Availability was drastically reduced in the mid-1930s during the massive gold melts. Mint State survivors are seldom available, typically grading only in the MS62 and lower range. The date is scarce in MS63, and rare at grades beyond that. That’s easily illustrated by the NGC population of 23 with 6 graded higher. The one offered here is clean and attractive.
Listed at $14,400 in the CDN CPG and $17,500 in the NGC price guide.
Offered at $14,200
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A change in the weight specifications for U.S. gold coins in 1834 prompted a design change to distinguish the new, lower-weight half eagles from previous old-tenor pieces. Earlier half eagles had a greater intrinsic value than their face value, which led to widespread hoarding and melting. Many of the heavier-weight coins were melted and struck as 1834 Classic Head fives, which feature a new portrait of Liberty without a cap. The motto E PLURIBUS UNUM is absent from the reverse. Two date logotypes exist. Most of the 1834 Classic Head half eagles have a Plain 4 in the date, while a single, scarce variety (as offered here) displays a Crosslet 4 date.
The NGC population is 16 with 9 graded higher.
Listed at $18,000 in the NGC price guide.
Offered at $17,500
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From a tiny mintage of just 751 pieces, the 1885 Liberty double eagle is a rare issue in all grades today. The small mintage was a consequence of contemporary Mint policy, which sought to reduce production of double eagles and increase the circulation of the five and ten-dollar denominations. The Philadelphia Mint followed this policy for much of the 1880s, and small double eagle mintages were the rule, rather than the exception, during this time period. Jeff Garrett and Ron Guth discuss the 1885 double eagle in their Encyclopedia of U.S. Gold Coins: “The mintage for the 1885 double eagle is among the lowest of all U.S. issues. Very few gold coins have a mintage below 1,000. It goes without saying that the date is extremely popular. The availability of Proof examples is the only thing keeping this issue from being extremely expensive. The Smithsonian lacks a circulation-strike example for this reason. It is estimated that there are fewer than 100 known in all grades.” The NGC population is 6 with 31 graded higher. Listed at $69,600 in the CDN CPG and $80,000 in the NGC price guide.
Offered at $63,300
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The 1841 Seated quarters are rarely encountered in high grades, with this example being one of the two finest. Strong doubling is evident on the reverse legend of this variety. Although slight peripheral softness is seen on the obverse stars, all other details show excellent definition. The frosty silver surfaces are faintly toned with hints of gold. This is the only example to grade MS66 at PCGS, with none higher. Listed at $40,000 in the PCGS price guide.
Offered at $27,250
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The Arrows at Date type of the Seated Liberty half dime was only produced for three years, from 1853 through 1855, at the New Orleans and Philadelphia mints. The Philadelphia issues are by far more plentiful than the O-mint coins, making them ideal for type representation. Yet, among the three P-mint dates, the 1855 is noticeably scarcer than the earlier two. The one offered here boasts highly lustrous, color free surfaces and loads of eye appeal. The PCGS population is (this) 1 with 1 graded higher. Listed at $20,000 in the PCGS price guide. Offered at $14,700
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WE TRUST is die doubled, as always on proofs of this date. Full Red examples of the 1871 proof two cent pieces are scarce but occasionally seen in grades from PR64 to PR66. However, Registry collectors or other advanced specialists may wish to seek a Superb Gem Red example, and here collectors will encounter a severe challenge. PCGS lists only two coins in PR67 Red, and NGC has seen just two additional pieces in the same grade. Listed at $45,000 in the PCGS price guide.
Offered at $24,500
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Since the First San Francisco Mint concentrated on double eagle production, the 1859-S ten-dollar mintage was only 7,000 pieces. None were given numismatic consideration, and PCGS estimates only “40 to 60 known,” comparable with the 1870-CC. The median grade is XF, and only a single example (an MS60 NGC coin) has been certified as Mint State. The NGC population is just 6 with 13 graded higher. Listed at $19,200 in the CDN CPG and $19,000 in the NGC price guide.
Offered at $14,700
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Gold deposits at the New Orleans Mint went into a steep decline after the San Francisco Mint opened for coinage operations in 1854. Accordingly, the famous Southern facility produced only limited numbers of double eagles every year throughout the remainder of the decade. In 1858, the mintage was just 35,250 pieces, certainly a modest production in absolute terms, but actually quite generous in the context of the series. The coins were released into commercial channels and circulated widely in both foreign and domestic trade.
Few 19th century collectors could afford to set aside long date runs of twenty-dollar coins for their collections, and the wealthy collectors who did collect double eagles systematically preferred to update their holdings by purchasing proofs from the Philadelphia Mint every year. There was little numismatic interest in branch mint issues before Augustus Heaton published his landmark treatise on mintmarks in 1893, so New Orleans Mint issues were almost completely neglected. By the time collecting double eagles became popular, in the late 1930s, the 1858-O double eagles had been circulating for decades, suffering much wear and attrition along the way. Doug Winter estimates the surviving population at 225-275 examples in all grades, with only 6-7 specimens in Mint State. Three of the Mint State coins were recovered from the wreck of the S.S. Republic.
This example displays glittering luster at the protected areas on each side.
The PCGS population is 17 with 66 graded higher. Listed at $24,000 in the CDN CPG and $30,000 in the PCGS price guide.
Offered at $24,500
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What’s fast becoming the largest economic union in the world has just announced a new gold-backed currency aimed deliberately at replacing the US dollar. We are going to find out what’s happening, why it’s happening, and what it all means for a rising and very real new world order.
– The upcoming BRICS summit in South Africa will focus on creating a new gold-backed currency, further accelerating de-dollarization.
– BRICS has emerged as a powerful economic bloc, attracting numerous countries seeking to join.
– De-dollarization may impact US government spending, potentially leading to living within means and prioritizing domestic interests.
Following the end of World War 2, the world outside of the Soviet bloc began to be led by a single super economic and militaristic superpower, namely the United States and most particularly its dollar. This accelerated in the 1970s when the United States struck a deal with Saudi Arabia to standardize oil prices in terms of the US dollar. In many ways, this deal elevated the US dollar to the world’s reserve currency since you could buy oil and gas directly without going through some kind of exchange rate. Moreover, nations buying and selling in US dollars in turn inordinately purchase US Treasury bonds with their surplus dollars to lose money in the exchange process back to their currencies.
This in turn allows the US government to print as much money as they want. They assume that plenty of foreign nations using the US dollar will purchase up all the debt in the form of US Treasuries. All of that changed on Thursday, February 24th, 2022. That’s when Russian forces launched a special military operation into Ukraine. In mere hours, two sanctions were unleashed on Russia from the United States and the European Union, using the US currency against Russia and kicking them off SWIFT, the international financial transaction platform which is inordinately controlled by US banks. Suddenly, in the eyes of many around the world, the dollar transformed from a free international currency into a very powerful and effective weapon that more nations feared would eventually be used against them.
The weaponization of the dollar has escalated the need for many countries to deliberately begin the process of de-dollarization. A few months ago, Brazil and China reached an agreement to ditch the dollar and conduct their cross-border trade with the Yuan, the Chinese currency. Around the same time, China and Saudi Arabia began talks to price Saudi Arabia’s oil sales in the Yuan rather than dollars. Similarly, both the UAE and Qatar have been trading with China using the Yuan in direct payments. Even France just completed their first Yuan-settled liquified natural gas trade with China.
The rise of BRICS is being called the hottest ticket in geopolitics. BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, the five foundational nations that have formed a new and powerful economic bloc. Since its formation in the 2000s, the economic bloc has grown exponentially, with dozens of countries seeking to join. Nations such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Algeria, Argentina, Mexico, and Nigeria are all lining up and applying for membership, making up over 40% of the world’s population. All eyes are fixed on their upcoming summit in August in South Africa because it’s just been announced that the agenda there will center on the creation of a new gold-backed currency that would have at least 20 nations all joining in.
This development is considered by many to be key in accelerating the trend of de-dollarization. More nations are moving away from the US dollar as the dominant global reserve currency. As we saw earlier, de-dollarization is already well underway. The international return to the gold standard appears key here. China, Russia, and India hold substantial gold reserves, with China alone possessing over 50,000 tons. The Shanghai Gold Exchange allows for the conversion of currencies into gold, and this mechanism will likely play a role in the new BRICS currency.
The gold-backed currency used among BRICS nations aims to further erode the dollar and establish a multi-polar world, a world where political and economic power is decentralized away from a single dominant power and shared instead among a variety of political and economic centers. Scholars have argued that the age of a unipolar world, a world with a single superpower, the United States, governing the rules by which all other nations have to live by, is dead. We have already been seeing a multipolar world rising for the last couple of decades.
The gold-backed currency represents a rising new geopolitical world order. It is going to take time before the economics of that world order changes substantially, and that’s because the US dollar remains, by far, the single most dominant currency. There has been significant de-dollarization. In 2001, 73% of global reserves were held in dollars, but that percentage has now decreased to 58%. It is important to distinguish between how much a currency is kept as a share of the reserves of central banks around the globe versus how much it continues to be used in everyday global financial transactions. While nations are seeking alternatives to the dollar, it still overwhelmingly dominates as the currency by which people lend, borrow, and save. It remains the dominant currency by which most nations measure their assets and debt.
The dollar is and will remain very strong for the foreseeable future, even though it’s going to have some major competitors. As more nations de-dollarize, fewer will be buying up US debt, which means that the Treasury can no longer continue to print money at the pace it’s been printing over the last few decades. This means that our government can possibly begin living within our means, stop the endless funding of foreign wars, and prioritize the interests of the people over against the interests of a financial class led by an out-of-control Federal Reserve. If that happens, de-dollarization may not just benefit the international community, it may have extraordinary benefits here at home as well.
