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Sale 32
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Lot 2551
1856-S $20 Liberty. PCGS graded MS-65 PQ. Lovely gem. Full mint bloom. Pop 6; 2 in 66. Gorgeous bright frosty luster, essentially "as struck" -- an incredible coin if you have never seen one of these stunning double eagles!
The mint at San Francisco opened for business in 1854 in response to the flood of gold bullion issuing from California's Sierra Nevada mother lodes. From gold's discovery in 1848 until the mint began taking deposits of bullion, a number of private mints operated in this part of the state. Much of the issue from San Francisco went east through various means to satisfy the needs of commerce and for use as export. Of the double eagles that stayed behind in California, most were used as currency since the state's residents rejected paper money of any kind. This is the main reason why double eagles are found circulated (often heavily so) and only rarely in fresh mint condition. The Mint State 65 offered here is quite naturally among the finest in existence and an exciting coin for us to offer at auction. Most of the S. S. Central America double eagles, of which this may be a part, were dated 1857-S not 1856-S, and then only a few thousand frosty original coins exist out of the original mintage. These trace to the shipwreck of the passenger liner S. S. Central America, which floundered off the East Coast in a storm late in 1857.
On the history of the $20 denomination itself: one of the consequences of the immense discoveries of gold in California was an increase in gold bullion coming to the Philadelphia Mint for coinage. Authorities felt that large-scale domestic or international transactions payable in gold should be made in more compact form than eagles or smaller denominations. Accordingly, Rep. James Iver McKay (D.N.C.) was persuaded to introduce an amendment to his Gold Dollar bill, Feb. 1849, which would authorize coinage also of $20s, to be called Double Eagles. These were to weigh 516 grains = 33.436 grams, a little over a troy ounce each, and be roughly comparable in value to several Latin American denominations (PCGS # 8919) .
Estimated Value $25,000 - 30,000.
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| Realized $32,200 |
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