Lot 2034
Delightful 1849 Norris, Gregg & Norris Fiver! PCGS graded AU-55. The first of the California private-mint issues, mentioned as early as May 1849 in a newspaper account which noted that a useful five-dollar-gold coin had just been made at Benicia City. Almost immediately, these coins disappeared into history, and the minters' initials which appear on these coins ("N.G & N." above the date of 1849) were not tied to the folks who created these coins until the next century.
This specimen is charming almost beyond belief. Although circulated slightly, which we think adds to its historical appeal, it is remarkably fine in all respects. The rims are clean and unharmed. The beading inside these rims is especially distinct. The surfaces are only lightly ticked by contact with other coins (we like to imagine some miner having this in a leather poke with others just like it, dangling from his belt back in 1849!). A fair amount of luster remains. And the color is a deepset orange-gold sheathed by a delightful purplish red hue. "A gosh-darned original beauty!" And rare as sin as such (sin today we mean, not sin back in them thar gold fields, of course).
In the autumn of 1849, a constitutional convention of withery politicians and wiley businessmen met in the coastal fishing town of Monterey, drafting a set of ideas which would prohibit the detested slavery from occurring in the Territory of California. The resulting document was ratified by a popular vote of citizens in November. These same conventioneers then petitioned Washington for statehood, a dream which came true in the autumn of 1850. The stage was set, for war over slavery and for the wildest expansion in the Union's wealth, as the hills of central California yielded tons of yellow dust and golden nuggets. This charming, historic, and very rare coin was created from some of the first of that native ore that came out of those golden brown hills.
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| Realized $8,740 |
