Some years back, I was asked to help a family who had gold coins given to the wife. She wondered if the collection of her dozen $20 gold pieces had any value. With gold, then a little over $1,100 an ounce, the coins would be worth around $13,000. I’d say that qualifies as “value.”
The key was to see if there were any surprises including rare dates, mintmarks or exceptional condition. Most of the coins seemed average. None were uncirculated and only a few had dates that carried a little premium. That was except for one dated 1861-S....
Now, most 1861-S $20 gold coins are fairly common, today worth about $2,300. That is, unless it is a design variety created by a man named Paquet. He was asked by the Mint to slightly modify the 1861 coin’s reverse design to help the striking process. His “tweak” didn’t work and the Mint quickly halted production. That was possible for those being struck in Philadelphia and New Orleans. Telegraph messages quickly stopped those coin presses. The San Francisco Mint was another story.
In 1861, the telegraph didn’t yet reach the west coast. It only went so far as St. Joseph, Missouri. From there, the Pony Express carried letters to Sacramento in 10 days. In that amount of time, the San Francisco Mint had already struck and distributed several thousand of Paquet’s modified coins. In the world of numismatics, that’s not a lot. Moreover, today, not too many of those remain.
As luck would have it, I spotted the woman’s 1861-S to be one of the rare varieties. Sadly, it wasn’t in good condition. In fact, it looked pretty bad. Still, we sent it off for authentication. It came back “genuine.” I then placed it at auction. That lowly $2,300 coin that long sat in a forgotten bag brought a hefty $59,000. It was enough, the family said, to pay-off their son’s college.
You might think things like that are a “one-off.” A unique situation. Not so fast. Last week, longtime numismatic pundit and journalist Donn Pearlman tipped me off to an even more amazing find with a similar outcome.
It involved a box of one-dollar gold pieces owned by a family in Philadelphia. The coins had been squirreled away in a safe deposit box for over a century. They hadn’t been forgotten but the family didn’t give them much thought. They do now.
In fairness, one-dollar gold pieces often don’t get a lot of attention. They are smaller than a dime and, obviously, contain 1/20th the amount of gold found in a $20 gold piece. Dollar coins began being struck in 1849, just after the beginning of the California Gold Rush. They were made at mints in San Francisco; Philadelphia; New Orleans; Charlotte, North Carolina and Dahlonega, Georgia. Coins from the latter two mints are exceptionally rare and incredibly valuable.
The coins found in Philadelphia were selected by and bought from legendary coin dealer Henry Chapman. In business in the very early 1900s, Chapman is now considered by many to be the first “career” coin dealer in the US. Chapman clearly had an eye for the best coins in particularly spectacular grades. The coins found in individual envelopes in the family’s Philadelphia safe deposit box were recently examined. They are now considered some of the finest known. Experts who have seen the diminutive gold pieces are astonished the hoard was unknown for so long.
The collection includes 51 Coronet and Indian Head gold dollars struck between 1849 and 1889. In addition, there are eight U.S. commemorative gold dollars struck at the beginning of the 20th-century for two World’s Fairs and a few presidents.
The family who owns the coins wishes to remain anonymous. Because the coins were each in small manilla envelopes bearing the name and inscription of Henry Chapman Numismatists, the accumulation has been monikered the “Henry Chapman Collection.” That identifier is included on the grading holder for each coin.
So, what’s the value? Well, the family had the 59 coins insured for $50,000. That comes to just under $850 per coin. Years ago, that probably seemed high. Now, after having been examined and certified, they are insured for two-million dollars. That might be conservative.
Clearly, such finds are not unique. They happen more often than we might imagine. Best of all, they add excitement to a world where it’s fun to regularly wonder, “what if?!”
For more collecting information and advice, log on to: http://prexford.com/.