Goldberg Coins and Collectibles

Sale 4

The Dr. Jon Kardatzke Coin and Currency Collection, Part 1

$10 Gold

Lot	Photo	Description	Realized
Lot 1894		1801 $10 Capped Bust. Sharpness of MS-63. This is, at first glance, a dynamic looking gold piece. Close inspection reveals some problems, however. The reverse shows a lot of very fine hairlines, swirling. The fields are smooth--too smooth, in fact. The obverse fields have been smoothed down (polished with some skill) to remove scratches or who knows what else was once present. The color is far too bright, an artificial looking yellow. Yet, the strike is sharp in most respects, the rims are without bumps, and the denticles are deep set, producing an oddly appealing coin. Not for the connoisseur, but plenty of collectors would find this more than good enough for their needs. We will leave it to you bidders to determine its value. View details	Realized $3,910
Lot 1895		1843 $10 Liberty. VF-30. Moderate circulation marks, with some luster near the devices. Light hairlines. View details	Realized $276
Lot 1896		1851-O $10 Liberty. ANACS graded AU-50. This coin is far too nice to remain in its AU50 holder for long. The number grade is hard to understand, because the details are those of an uncirculated coin and only the lack of full luster and the usual bagmarks take anything away from this attractive coin. It's really a nice AU55 with deep golden yellow color. Heavier marks on the face and by star 12, but these are nothing out of the ordinary for such a coin. Has the curious small "o" in the shield, thought to be a replacement for the centering dot found on lots of early issues. View details	Realized $1,035
Lot 1897		1851-O $10 Liberty. VF-35. Popular New Orleans Mint issue. View details	Realized $345
Lot 1898		1867 $10 Liberty. AU-50. Semi-prooflike surfaces give a gleam to this coin, even with its numerous bag abrasions. The strike is sharp over all the design and the rims are okay and the color is a mellow gold. Somehow, though obvious and many, the abrasions do not bother the eye all that much. This coin is from the Amon Carter sale. Only 3,090 were made for commerce and it is rare today. View details	Unsold
Lot 1899		1877 $10 Liberty. PCGS graded AU-50. A thousand bagmarks and even a canal rut over the eagle's head might seem like plenty to complain about in a sizable gold coin like this, but then you see that the mintage was just 817 pieces. Eight hundred and seventeen. Including 20 Proofs! The criticism gets tempered by this. Absolute rarity, not condition rarity. On the other hand, none is known to exist in Uncirculated. So again the criticism gets tempered by a harsh dose of reality. Out of artificial light, the coin seems to glow with an orange-gold fire because the original surfaces were a bit prooflike and the metal has mellowed from mint bright to the colors of a summer sunset. If you don't like it, don't bid. But this ex Amon Carter coin will appeal to many. One of 6 so graded by PCGS, with 9 graded higher. None have been graded Mint State, although. View details	Unsold
Lot 1900		1879 $10 Liberty. Fine-12 to Very Fine. A group of 4 Eagles, including 1879-S, 1881, 1882 and 1906-S. Lot of 4 coins. View details	Realized $690
Lot 1901		1880 $10 Liberty. A little hoard of Eagles, including the following dates: 1880, 1887-S, 1888-S, 1894, 1898-S, 1901 and 1906-S. Fine to Extremely Fine. Lot of 7 coins. View details	Realized $1,208
Lot 1902		1880 $10 Liberty. AU-50. Choice for the grade. View details	Realized $178
Lot 1903		1882 $10 Liberty. PCGS graded MS-64. Semi-prooflike on both sides and sheathed by a lovely deep golden orange toning. A number of small ticks, but this piece glows with luster. View details	Unsold
Lot 1904		1883 $10 Liberty. ANACS graded Proof 55. A Proof which got into a bag of other coins, somehow, for it's loaded with bagmarks which becloud the mirrors' depth. But this piece was never circulated ("55" tends to suggest that, but in Proofs it means Impaired). Of course no perfectionist will bid on this coin, that's their nature. But lots of coin enthusiasts will be delighted by it. Just 40 Proof tens were made this year. PCGS has graded 2 of them (both as PR64). NGC has seen 2 as well (also PR64). Maybe that represents just 2 coins total? Whether 2 or 4, that's a tiny number to have turned up, isn't it? Put into that kind of perspective, maybe this one is worth some serious attention. The cataloguer can tell you this much. For all the splendid coins he has catalogued over 25 years, he likes this coin. The abrasions are all from other coins. There is no man-produced cleaning of any kind. The Proof fire still blazes, right through all those marks, even if the "deep pool" effect supposed to be created by those Proof fields is no longer present. It's true that this coin is best enjoyed in natural light, rather than through a glass under 100 watts of beam. But that's how it was meant to be viewed back in 1883--remember, there would not be electric lights in American homes for another two decades. It was only on September 4, 1882, that inventor Thomas A. Edison first supplied electricity to our biggest city, Manhattan. His Pearl Street "central station" created steam-generated power which he sent out to the city's streetlights via a system of pole-carried wires, which only appeared on a few major streets in 1882. The throngs of immigrants down in the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn remained in the dark a while longer. As in recent years, floods along the Ohio River caused plenty of damage. New York millionaire William Vanderbilt (grandson of the "Commodore" who thought the public should "be damned") spent a quarter-million dollars on one elegant party for twelve hundred guests--thereby beginning an extravagant lifestyle which continues to this day--only now, it's dot-com billionaires. Perhaps this 1883 golden eagle jingled in Lady Astor's purse or gown pocket! Or perhaps it was the "flip coin" for New York's very first Horse Show, held on October 22nd of 1883. We will never know, and its history will remain locked up forever beneath those bagmarks, somewhere deep in the clouded mirrors of this still-glittering symbol of the ultimate American "culture"--money!. View details	Realized $2,530
Lot 1905		1883-S $10 Liberty. AU-50. Choice for the grade. View details	Realized $299
Lot 1906		1886-S $10 Liberty. EF-45. Frosty and lustrous. View details	Realized $173
Lot 1907		1890 $10 Liberty. Fine-12 to Very Fine. A small hoard of Eagles, including 1890, 1892, 1895, 1897 and 1898. Lot of 5 coins. View details	Realized $863
Lot 1908		1893-O $10 Liberty. PCGS graded MS-62. This seems a little choppy for a 62, but the experts must have decided that the luster and original satiny surfaces were nice enough to assign the number. Having said that, we have to add that the reverse is really quite nice, and the marks don't really get in the way of enjoying the design. Very low mintage with just 17,000 coined at ole N'orleens this year, few made probably because the Nation was sunk in its first serious depression. In fact, the U.S. gold reserve fell below the storied $100 million mark and the Treasury had to suspend the issuance of Gold Certificates, fearing a run on physical gold. That might indeed have occurred, because the Panic of '93 devastated many investors in the stock market, forced countless farmers into foreclosure, and even caused the collapse of Wall Street trusts (which probably alone deserved such a fate). Finally President Cleveland got the Sherman Silver Purchase Act repealed by Congress, making it impossible to trade silver for Treasury gold, and the panic sullied off into history. By the end, though, Federal gold reserves had fallen to $80 million. No wonder the mints turned out so few gold eagles in 1893!. View details	Realized $1,725
Lot 1909		1894 $10 Liberty. PCGS graded MS-64. Evidently, baggy isn't such an awful thing anymore at PCGS. The color's good here, as is the strike. The luster tends to dismiss the marks, but there are just too many of them for our taste, to be called "Very" Choice BU. View details	Unsold
Lot 1910		1894 $10 Liberty. PCGS graded MS-64. About like the other PCGS-64 in color and strike, but a lot fewer abrasions and more satiny as a result. View details	Unsold
Lot 1911		1894 $10 Liberty. PCGS graded MS-60. Lightly bagmarked atop frosty surfaces. Hints of coppery toning starting to form. In the old PCGS holder. View details	Realized $276
Lot 1912		1901 $10 Liberty. PCGS graded MS-62. Lovely color and surfaces for the grade. View details	Realized $253
Lot 1913		1901-S $10 Liberty. NGC graded MS-65. Nice and clean with a good look and strike. Fairly satiny on both sides. It's funny how all those gold coins dipped in the 70s and 80s are now more or less the same "original gold" in color. Oh well, times they change all right. View details	Realized $2,185
Lot 1914		1901-S $10 Liberty. ANACS graded MS-64. This is a wonderful coin. Wonderful! Fully struck in every detail. The right original gold color. Gleaming surfaces. The abrasions are natural and honest. If some of this recently made stuff is in 65 and 66 slabs, this coin deserves no less than an MS66 rating. It's that choice! (In case you examine it carefully and wonder about the long "line" inside star 3, that's a tooling scratch made on the die, not a defect, okay?). View details	Realized $863
Lot 1915		1901-S $10 Liberty. Fine-12 to Very Fine. A group of 1901-S Eagles, all circulated. Lot of 4 coins. View details	Realized $661
Lot 1916		Gem 1902 Totally Proof $10 Gold - A Jewel! PCGS graded Proof 65. During 1902, the Philadelphia Mint on Spring Garden Street produced coins with a full mirror finish, and gleaming rather than frosted devices, including Liberty's cheek. On this wonderful specimen, the fields, devices and glowing yellow-gold color are all superb, there being nothing at all to draw the eye away from the stunning portrayal of freedom captured by both images. A tiny lintmark lies right by star 12, which may serve to identify this specimen in the future, but that is the only "mark" on the glassy surfaces. PCGS has graded only 4 coins this high, and none higher. In fact, of the original mintage of 113, Breen estimated that only 35-40 survive to represent this date in Proof. We should note that the coin here is a little crooked in the holder, but this tends to happen sometimes. PCGS will remedy this if the new buyer wishes, for a small fee. Coin booms may come and go, but quality and rarity never go out of style. Here is a coin that possess both quality and rarity in abundance, and one that will always be highly prized by enthusiasts. Encased in an old PCGS holder. Historical note: The famous "rough rider" Teddy Roosevelt was in the White House for only a few months when this coin was probably made, and he was about to earn the scorn of big business and Wall Street as a "trust buster," even though he was wealthy himself and thought big was best--it just wasn't necessarily in the public's best interests and he wanted to limit monopolies. Was this the politician in him, or did he genuinely possess a concern for the average American? Whatever was the case, 1902 also saw a major labor strike by the United Mine Workers, lasting all summer, because mine owners refused to relent any power over its workers. Coal soared in price--any early instance of inflation in prosperous America. When Roosevelt decided to call in the Army to work the mines, thereby siding with the workers, the infamous J.P. Morgan agreed to negotiate an end to the damaging strike. Roosevelt's popularity greatly increased, and the laboring public had new rights at the end of the fight. None of those workers, though, would ever have the spare resources to obtain or collect a coin such as this--that was for the ultra rich, like Morgan, for whom ten dollars was but a few moments' income. Maybe stingy old J.P. himself once owned this very Proof. View details	Unsold
Lot 1917		Stuning 1903 Brilliant Proof $10 Gold. PCGS graded Proof 64 Premium Quality. Oh yeah, okay, some stray hairlines as befits a 64, but this coin is marvelous to look at, with deep mirrors and shiny yellow surfaces. It really has the look of a "Superb" coin! Only 96 minted. You can count on one hand the number of these given a PR65 grade (none better from PCGS), but do they really please the eye any more than this virtual Gem? You decide and bid accordingly for this golden jewel. In 1903, Teddy Roosevelt was in the middle of his first term in the White House, and about to make a decision that would halt forever the manufacture of these Liberty Head gold coins. All sorts of changes were brewing for the Nation in this year, during which few international events involved America. Politicians mostly argued over internal affairs such as labor laws. But Teddy Roosevelt, ever mindful of our changing role as a country, bludgeoned negotiators for sovereignty over the proposed canal in central America, to link the Atlantic with the Pacific shipping routes. As he said later on, "I took the Canal and let Congress debate." View details	Realized $15,640
Lot 1918		1907 $10 Indian. No periods. PCGS graded MS-61. With light original color starting to form on each side. Light bagmarks from normal shipping. View details	Realized $403
Lot 1919		1908-D $10 Indian. With motto. MS-60. Quite clean surfaces for the grade. No rim marks or heavy abrasions. View details	Realized $529
Lot 1920		1910-D $10 Indian. ICG graded MS-67. A pebbly-dies Gem from the new boys on the block. Satiny surfaces, even down to the depths of the bagmark in the obverse left field. Amazing quality, and worth a close inspection. View details	Unsold
Lot 1921		1910-D $10 Indian. NGC graded MS-64. Just about the look you'd expect for the grade. Long thin scratch to left of date. View details	Unsold
Lot 1922		1910-D $10 Indian. PCGS graded AU-58. Housed in the old style of PCGS holder. One faint staple scratch is noted in the left obverse field before the Indian's face. Nearly full luster and ripe for an upgrade. View details	Realized $368
Lot 1923		1910-D $10 Indian. PCGS graded AU-58. A frosty coin that is well struck and free of detracting marks. In the old PCGS holder. Scarce and desirable. View details	Realized $472
Lot 1924		1910-D $10 Indian. PCGS graded AU-58. Nearly full luster save for the highest points of the design. In an old style PCGS holder, and from a collection that has been held off the market over a decade. View details	Realized $368
Lot 1925		1910-D $10 Indian. EF-40. Lightly cleaned. This coin saw very little circulation and obviously was set aside for years in someone's little drawer of treasures. View details	Realized $299
Lot 1926		1911 $10 Indian. PCGS graded MS-62. Nearly choice, and housed in the old style PCGS holder. Lustrous. View details	Realized $604
Lot 1927		1911 $10 Indian. PCGS graded AU-58. Frosty and lustrous, in an old PCGS holder. View details	Realized $391
Lot 1928		Perfection - A Superb 1913 Matte Proof $10 Gold. PCGS graded Proof 66. The Philadelphia Mint continued to tinker with the satin finish on its Proof gold coins. In 1912 and 1913 a fine sandblast finish was used, which shows millions of sparkling facets under a magnifier. Thus, the surfaces of both the fields and the devices have the appearance of tiny sand grains spreading over the coin. A meager 71 were struck back in 1913, and of these perhaps 25 survive. PCGS for its 13 years of grading has only seen 14 of this date in Proof, with this coin being tied with 3 others for the finest graded. This sale contains a gem run of 1913 Proof gold--the Quarter Eagle, Half Eagle and Eagle are all included and perhaps can be purchased individually to put together a gem Gold Proof date set. As a year, 1913 is certainly appealing, for the fine sandblast Proof finish used then is one of the most beautiful of the various Proof finishes produced. Be sure to view this spectacular coin! It's a treat. View details	Unsold
Lot 1929		1914-D $10 Indian. PCGS graded AU-58. A frosty and well struck coin for the grade. In an old PCGS holder. View details	Realized $460
Lot 1930		Gem 1914-S $10 Gold. NGC graded MS-65. A satiny Gem BU with "the look." Very rare in this high grade. One of the rarer dates in the $10.00 Gold series. One of only 3 so graded with 2 coins graded higher by NGC, confirming how rare this date is in gem. A rare opportunity for the specialist to put away a tough San Francisco issue. View details	Unsold
Lot 1931		1915 $10 Indian. PCGS graded MS-65. Remarkably clean. Looking hard, you can only discover a few tiny ticks anywhere. A few touch the Indian's cheek. View details	Realized $4,830
Lot 1932		1915 $10 Indian. PCGS graded MS-63. Unusual and, to this cataloguer at least, really delightful deep greenish gold toning. Thoroughly original, therefore, in a way that virtually no USA gold coins are anymore. It also seems somewhat tightly graded, for there are only light scattered abrasions. If enough collectors with sophisticated taste in color see this coin, a bidding fight could erupt. View details	Realized $978
Lot 1933		1926 $10 Indian. PCGS graded MS-62. Nice color and surfaces. In a 1st Generation PCGS holder. View details	Realized $460
Lot 1934		1932 $10 Indian. PCGS graded MS-66. An essentially flawless and remarkably satiny Gem of an eagle! This is how they should look when graded Superb. If you're going to step out for an Indian ten, do it on this beauty. View details	Unsold
Lot 1935		1932 $10 Indian. PCGS graded MS-60. A frosty Mint State coin for the grade. View details	Realized $357
Lot 1936		1932 $10 Indian. PCGS graded MS-60. One of several coins from a huge collection, all in old PCGS holders. View details	Realized $345