A Flashy O-mint $10 Lib Only 18,000 eagles were minted in New Orleans throughout 1855, as gold coin production shifted to the new San Francisco Mint, which had opened the previous year. Apparently, very few were saved as this issue is rarely seen in higher grades. The NGC census stands at just 14 with none…
Still Worth Way Over Melt Often called the most beautiful American coin design, the Saint-Gaudens double eagle exhibited intricate treatment of the drapery and equal depth of the reverse design, rendering a three-dimensional appearance rarely seen on American coins before or since. Barbara Baxter writes in her chapter on “Coins and Medals” published in Augustus…
Eight-Sided & Quite Large Holding an example of the Octagonal fifty dollar gold pieces struck to commemorate the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915, one notices several things. Chief among them are the coins’ size, shape, weight, and intricate design. Of the 1,509 examples struck, 645 pieces were sold to fair-goers for $100 apiece. The Octagonal…
Don’t Throw Away This “Key” (Date) David Lawrence calls the 1901-S the “King of all Barber Quarters” because of its low mintage and low survival rate. Only 72,664 Barber quarters were struck at the San Francisco Mint in 1901, a remarkably low mintage for any 20th century coin. There were relatively few coin collectors on…
A Rare Gem Although the San Francisco Mint struck slightly more than 2,000,000 double eagles in 1899, many of them were used in foreign banking and business transactions. Additionally, many of the extant examples were repatriated from European holdings in recent decades. This very sharply struck examples is tied with ten others for the highest…
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