Coin Monday: Pikes Peak Gold

May 24, 2010
Written by John Dale

The ANA Summer Seminar, held at the Colorado College in Colorado Springs, which was the site of some of my fondest Young Numismatist memories.

When a gathering of coin enthusiasts reaches critical mass, learning and silliness ensue, and this is especially true when said coin enthusiasts are in high school or college. By the end of the week, several (usually harmless) pranks have been sprung on various seminar-goers staying in the dorms.

One year, I was a designated target of the dress-as-a-ghost-and-jump-out-of-the-closet trick. Unfortunately for the pranksters, my voice hadn’t cracked yet.

BOO! EEK! ARRGH! as the “ghost” in front went down, clutching his hands to his ears.

Other moments were plenty serious, and plenty awesome, like the trip up Pikes Peak. (No apostrophe, no joke. Supposedly there’s even a law about it in Colorado.) I’d heard about Katharine Lee Bates writing America the Beautiful after visiting Pikes Peak, and after looking out at the same views, I could understand why.

Pikes Peak isn’t all that close to present-day Denver, but when gold was discovered in the area (and the earliest version of Denver founded), Pikes Peak was the most visible landmark in the region, and “Pikes Peak or Bust!” became a famous slogan for the Colorado gold rush.

The three most prominent issuers of Territorial gold coins in Colorado all referenced “Pikes Peak” on their coins. John Parsons & Company and J.J. Conway & Co. were short-term operations, and their coins are rarities today, but Clark, Gruber & Co. was better-established and struck numerous pieces in denominations that mirrored the Federal coinage. (All coins from the upcoming June Long Beach U.S. Coin Auction.)

Not only were the denominations the same, but the smaller coins looked suspiciously similar to U.S. quarter eagles and half eagles, too. The government eventually bought out the firm, and Clark, Gurber & Co. is actually the ancestor of the Denver Mint that still operates today.

While Clark, Gruber & Co. did its assaying work in present-day Colorado, the dies used to strike the firm’s coins were not made on-site, but rather shipped in. This is most obvious on the $10 coins, like lot 1978 or 1979.

Clearly the artist had never been to Colorado. Pikes Peak doesn’t look like that. Not even close. (Art directors of the world, you have a new case study!)

Today, however, the peak-that-is-not-Pikes is all part of the quaint charm of the ten dollar pieces. The Territorial coinage enthusiasts are sure to be out in force when the Clark, Gruber & Co. sequence sells. Why not join them for this golden opportunity?

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-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: 1916/1916

May 17, 2010
Posted by John Dale

Heritage has had at least one Featured Collection in each U.S. Coin auction since I started cataloging here, and the June Long Beach Auction is no exception. There are three Featured Collections this go-round, the most prominent of which is The Brenda John Collection. If you haven’t seen this collection already, it’s chock-full of top-quality Lincoln cents and Buffalo nickels.

Need some further convincing? Try this: there’s a 1916 Doubled Die Obverse nickel in MS64. No, you aren’t seeing double…the doubling is that strong! That huge spread between the two dates is completely real. It’s not hard to imagine production of a die being bungled this badly—accidents do happen, after all—but for such a die to then be put into use is rather baffling.

Also rather baffling is how doubling this blatant went basically undiscovered for two decades. Once you know where to look, the doubling is obvious and unforgettable, yet collectors seem to have missed the variety at the time of release. By the time it was discovered and publicized, an unknown number of examples had been lost forever to circulation, and many others were well-worn. A survivor in MS64 is a precious treasure indeed.

Also early on, collectors didn’t really understand what they were seeing. Overdates, where one date was punched over another, were familiar to them; so were repunched dates, where the same date was punched in twice, not perfectly in sync. So collectors of the time, seeing the obvious doubling on the date, naturally called it the “1916/1916,” to signal a repunched date, only it wasn’t a repunched date at all.

Take a closer look at the coin, and look away from the date. The feathers at the back of the portrait’s head are doubled, too. Also doubled are his neck and his profile, particularly the chin and lips. As collectors increased their knowledge of doubled dies, fueled by interest in the now-famous 1955 Doubled Die Obverse cent, earlier varieties were re-examined, and the more subtle signs of the 1916 Doubled Die Obverse nickel were recognized. The “Doubled Die” usage became much more prevalent after this.

Every once in a while, though, the “1916/1916” term pops up, often in old catalogs or coin albums. It may not be considered strictly right by most numismatists nowadays, but there’s still room for the old term. Then there’s a rule of collecting that I picked up from a member of my local coin club when I was still a boy: you own the coin, you can call it whatever you like! So, who wants the naming rights?

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Coin Monday: 1873, Open and Close

May 10, 2001
Written by John Dale

It’s not uncommon to have guests in the cataloging department, important customers or potential customers who visit our humble wing as part of a grand tour of Heritage world headquarters. Last week was one such occasion, and I had the opportunity to show off a coin I was cataloging.

“Do you like gold?” I asked.

They did.

“Ever seen a three dollar gold coin before?”

They hadn’t. I passed one to them.

The usual ooh-ing and ahh-ing ensued. Then one gentleman turned it over.

“When was this made? 1878?” He asked.

The question struck me as odd. I didn’t remember which three dollar gold coin I’d handed to the tour, but none of the threes on my desk had been dated 1878.

“Hmm, did you check the label?”

He turned the coin over. “Oh, it’s 1873.”

Then I understood why he’d been confused. He passed the coin back to me with a comment about needing to get his eyes checked. I reassured him that his eyes weren’t the problem, and he was far from the first to make the same mistake.

At the start of 1873, the U.S. Mint used a four-digit date punch, or logotype, that had the two ends of the 3 in 1873 nearly touching the center. The 3 looked like an 8 at first glance, and it didn’t take long for this to come to the attention of the then-Chief Coiner of the Mint.

A new logotype, this time with the ends of the "3" well apart, went into service and was used for most of the year. Two dimes in the upcoming June Long Beach U.S. Coin Auction show the difference between the two logotypes: the last digit goes from ambiguous on the Closed "3" coin to obvious on the Open "3" piece.

Now there’s a funny wrinkle to that 1873 three dollar coin I showed to the tour. According to official Mint records, it shouldn’t exist. There are no records of three dollar gold coins being struck for circulation in 1873. So what gives? There are multiple possibilities, none conclusively proven.

The coins could have been struck in 1874 but from dies dated 1873. For example, when demand for $3 gold coins spiked in 1874, Mint workers may have just used the dies that were on-hand, which has historical precedent.

Or the Mint records could simply be in error, a theory used to explain any number of other rarities.

Parts of both could be correct, or both could be completely off-the-mark. Regardless, the 1873 $3 is a coin to keep an eye on.

Happy bidding!

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-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday on a Tuesday: Collecting the Atlanta Commemoratives

May 4, 2010
Written by John Dale

The Central States auction is in the books, though Post Auction Buys are still available for a limited time. The catalogers’ attention has been focused on the next auction, coming up in June at Long Beach.

One of the most interesting and unusual lots I have handled for Long Beach is of recent vintage: a complete set of U.S. commemorative coins struck for the Atlanta Olympics. (There aren’t any pictures yet for the set, but an example of the design—offered as a different lot in the same auction—illustrates this post.)

The Summer Olympics of 1996, held in Atlanta, Georgia, were the site of many personal and team successes, but from a numismatic perspective, they were also the inspiration for one of the most ambitious failures in recent U.S. Mint history: the Games’ commemorative coin program.

The modern era of commemorative coinage had begun in 1982. Before the 1980s, two separate eras had caused scandals that led to a suspension of commemorative coins. First, the 1930s saw some commemoratives struck on flimsy pretenses, and other designs were struck for several years, changing only the date. A change in law put a temporary stop to the latter abuse.

There were no commemoratives made from 1940 to 1945. From 1946 to 1954, a new sequence of commemorative issues came out. One, honoring the centennial of Iowa’s statehood, was a well-run success, but the other major program dragged out from 1946 to 1954, honoring first Booker T. Washington alone and then alongside George Washington Carver. That experience led to a 28-year moratorium on new issues.

U.S. commemoratives designed to honor the Olympic Games had tempted fate before: the Los Angeles Olympics were honored with three different designs in 13 different date, mintmark, and proof/Mint State combinations, and this profusion was puny compared to at least one of the original proposals! The Seoul and Barcelona Games were honored with more basic programs, but for Atlanta, the authorizing legislation pulled out all the stops.

Coins were struck in two years, 1995 and 1996; for each year, there were eight different designs, two of them in gold; and for each design, there were two different formats, proof and Mint State. Multiplied out, that makes 32 distinct coins to collect, and eight of them were gold!

Credit is due for ambition if nothing else, but the organizers’ sales projections were wildly off-target. Two coins—the 1996-W Flag Bearer and Cauldron five dollar gold coins in Mint State—had net mintages in the four-figure range, and other coins also had embarrassingly low mintages. What’s worse, the Atlanta Olympics coins affected collector purchases of other commemorative coins in 1995 and 1996, so that none of the campaigns was particularly successful.

In the wake of the Atlanta commemoratives, new rules were laid down to limit the number of commemorative programs and design types that could be struck in any one year, and the post-1996 commemoratives have been much easier to collect on a year-to-year basis.

For collectors looking to the past, the Atlanta coins offer an interesting challenge if collected one at a time. Then again, Long Beach will offer the opportunity to just buy the whole set at once. For potential bidders with deep pockets, it’s all a matter of ambition.

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-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: Wreath Arms Wide Open

Feb. 1, 2010

Written by John Dale

My taste in coins is well-defined: I favor proof Seated silver, classic and modern commemoratives, and obscure 19th century gold rarities.

My taste in music, on the other hand…well, calling it a “taste” stretches the definition of the word. But decidedly under-represented in the mix: power ballads. Pat Benatar is acceptable, but I draw the line at Michael Bolton, and ditto for any song title combining the words “arms” and “open” (see Journey, “Open Arms,” and Creed, “With Arms Wide Open” [JDB, I have to take issue with the Journey diss. Those guys stuill rock! In fact, my frist concert, at age 13, was Journey and Bryan Adams at the now-gone Reunion Arena here in Dallas! - NTF).

When the arms are those of a wreath, however, I do like open arms — and in the case of the 1849-C Open Wreath gold dollar, those open arms hold immense rarity, not to mention potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in value. Heritage is offering an 1849-C Open Wreath gold dollar, believed to be one of just five known, in the swiftly approaching February 2010 Long Beach U.S. Coin Auction. For many years, the fifth example was only rumored, though within the last couple of weeks Heritage has received information that all but confirms the existence of the fifth coin.

There are two major design varieties among gold dollars struck in 1849, the first year of the denomination, at the mint in Charlotte, NC. The “Open Wreath” coins have the ends of the wreath far away from the 1 in the denomination. The “Closed Wreath” coins, such as this example, have the ends in much closer. Both coins are from The Longfellow Collection, a remarkable gathering of gold dollars with the 1849-C Open Wreath as the cornerstone.

What makes the Open Wreath 1849-C gold dollar so rare? Between both Open Wreath and Closed Wreath coins, there were just 11,634 1849-C gold dollars struck. Researchers believe the Open Wreath coins were struck first, but only a couple hundred of them were made before the Closed Wreath design replaced the Open Wreath. Mint officials found fault with the technical details of the Open Wreath reverse, hence the replacement. For a Charlotte gold dollar issue, a survival rate below 3% is not unusual, so if, for example, 200 Open Wreath pieces were made originally, it wouldn’t be strange for just five coins to remain today.

Some rarities are famous, others obscure. To the collecting population at large, the Open Wreath 1849-C gold dollar is the latter, but the catalog description quotes Douglas Winter as saying, “Among Charlotte [gold] collectors, it has assumed near-mythic proportions.” What will it bring? A coin so infrequently seen is hard to predict, but a six-figure sum is virtually assured.

It’s time for me to go back to cataloging. I often catalog to music, and this time, I think I’ll make an exception to my usual rule about power ballads. Bring on the Pat Benatar! But should I start with “Shadows of the Night” or “Invincible?” Decisions, decisions… [I can only assume, John Dale, that you went with “Invincible.” – NTF]

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-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: ‘Well, now, I wouldn’t say that!’

Jan. 25, 2010

Written by John Dale

I had something of a “throwback moment” recently, reading through a copy of the “Greysheet” for the first time since — was it my internship here in the summer of 2004, or all the way back in 2002, when I was still in high school?

The Greysheet, more formally known as the COIN DEALER newsletter [sic], is a weekly publication listing “bid and ask” - suggested “buy” and “sell” prices - for many collectible U.S. coins in a variety of grades. The Greysheet, named for the signature color of its paper, has been a coin-shop staple since its inception in 1963, and two of its spin-off publications are of similar importance.

First, the “Bluesheet,” or CERTIFIED COIN DEALER newsletter, covers high-grade coins certified by NGC or PCGS, such as this 1944-D Walking Liberty half dollar, MS67 NGC, in Heritage’s upcoming February 2010 Long Beach U.S. Coin Auction. The other major spin-off is the “Greensheet,” or the CURRENCY DEALER newsletter, which covers collectible U.S. currency, but I’ve never actually used it; you’d have to talk to “the currency folks” for that one.

So if the Greysheet is such a numismatist’s essential, I should look at it every week, right? But as the Richard Q. Peavey character from The Great Gildersleeve would put it, “Well, now, I wouldn’t say that!” (For those of you unwilling to admit you heard The Great Gildersleeve over the radio, or those under the age of 55, perhaps you’ve seen a classic wartime Looney Tunes short, “Draftee Daffy,” in which Daffy Duck tries with increasing desperation to avoid the deliverer of his draft notice. The bespectacled messenger makes frequent use of the Peavey catchphrase.)

As a cataloger, I just don’t have much of a reason to pick up a Greysheet and look at it. I write about coins; I don’t make buying or selling decisions for the company, or help others make them. Thus, I consult price guides with less frequency than one of Heritage’s wholesale buyers, or a consignment director giving a client advice on proper venues for coins. When I do check a price guide, usually it’s to help me decide whether a coin should be photographed for the catalog, for example, or get a full-page description.

For that judgment call, I turn to Heritage’s Permanent Auction Archives and get my numbers from the past results. The Greysheet calls itself “The Only Source for Accurate, Timely & Unbiased Rare Coin Pricing Information!” I’ll admit to being a bit biased myself, but considering all the information, the actual prices paid for actual coins to be found in the Archives, I have only one proper response: “Well, now, I wouldn’t say that!”

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-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: “Hey, Stella!”

Aug. 31, 2009
Posted By John Dale

It’s a natural joke, I suppose…

Whenever a stella – or four-dollar pattern coin – comes through the cataloging department, a certain fellow will always crack wise, “Hey, Stella!” None of us catalogers will ever be mistaken for Marlon Brando, but I always chuckle when I hear it, mostly because I can easily appreciate a bad pun done in good fun. That, and it’s a Tennessee Williams joke. Those are impossible to resist…right?
There isn’t A Streetcar Named Desire here in Dallas (the throwback M-Line Streetcar is as close as we come…it’s worth a ride if you ever come down here on a visit to Heritage), but we do have plenty of stellas (not to be confused with Stellas) that pop up here in the office. In our August 2009 Los Angeles U.S. Coin Auction, a bidder paid more than half a million dollars for an extraordinary and extremely rare 1880 Coiled Hair stella.

This time around, in our September 2009 Long Beach U.S. Coin Auction, the stella we’re offering is not so rare as a type; the 1879 Flowing Hair stella is only scarce in an absolute sense, if far more in-demand than the supply could ever hope to satisfy. In terms of quality, however, this astounding PR67 specimen has few rivals.

Few patterns have the amount of associated lore that the various stellas enjoy: Andrew W. Pollock III, in his United States Patterns and Related Issues, notes that originally, just 25 of the 1879 Flowing Hair stellas were made, to be included in three-coin pattern sets to demonstrate the coinage concepts to Congress. The various members showed considerable enthusiasm for the unusual gold patterns, and according to Pollock, another 400 of the Flowing Hair stellas were made. (Other authorities suggest that the Pollock figure, if anything, understates the mintage figures for the restrikes, which were produced in 1880.)

However much the Congressmen of the time liked the stella as a pattern, they showed little love for it as a functional coin, and the bill that would make $4 an official coinage denomination never passed. Yet numismatists continued to show enthusiasm for the stellas, and some scholars believe that additional stellas were struck off at the behest of well-connected coin collectors.

The stellas met many fates; to some, they were interesting but merely decorative objects, as the numerous stellas that were formerly part of jewelry show. Others were lovingly preserved by numismatists. Certainly, a Superb Gem proof such as the stella Heritage is offering benefited from such guardianship in its century-plus of existence. Who will be next in its line of caretakers?
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-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: All’s Fair in Love and Key Dates

Aug. 3, 2009
Posted by John Dale

As a cataloger, most of the coins I see are like-new, or at worst, mildly worn. There’s a good reason for that: if a coin is expected to sell for a relatively small amount of money, it doesn’t make sense to put it through the entire process a coin in the floor session of a Signature® auction goes through. The expense of cataloging it, photographing it, and so on would be more than Heritage could make back on its fees. Thus, a well-worn 1857-dated dime wouldn’t cross my desk, but a far more valuable Gem example of the same date might.

This happens for most issues, in that higher-graded coins can be found in a floor session, whereas lower-graded pieces appear in non-floor sessions for example, or one of our Weekly Internet Coin Auctions. There are some dates, however, that are of such high value regardless of grade that they will almost always be hammered down in person. One such date is the 1901-S Barber quarter, and the Fair 2 example in our upcoming September 2009 Long Beach U.S. Coin Auction shows the principle in action.

In the context of the 70-point grading system, first published by Dr. William Sheldon in 1949 and used with modifications today, a coin graded Fair 2 is extremely worn, just one step above the Poor 1 or basal state. (Today’s standard for a Poor 1 coin is that it's barely identifiable, as in, “That’s an 1857 dime. Maybe?”) Though a coin may have a low numeric grade, that doesn’t keep it from being attractive or desirable, as this 1901-S quarter shows.

It came by its grade honestly, having spent a long time in circulation like many of its fellows; both sides are worn down, with parts of the obverse rim, and all of the reverse rim, smoothed away. “Smooth” is the key word here; the same wear that has taken away much of the detail on each side has also removed many of the abrasions that the coin must have accumulated while in circulation, leaving only a few marks on each side. The central details have strong outlines still, and the two most important features on the coin, the 1901 date and the S mintmark, remain bold.

While the high-grade devotee will want to look elsewhere, it’s perfect for the Barber quarter collector looking to cap off a pleasing circulated set of the series, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see the bidding get fierce. Beyond its value to collectors, a well-worn key-date coin like this one is important to me as a cataloger; it reminds me that no matter how many high-end coins I may catalog, every one of them is exceptional. In those moments I gain a greater appreciation, not only for the less-expensive coins I sometimes lose touch with, but also for the remarkable coins, the choicest ones from among the many collections consigned to Heritage, that come across my desk every day.

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-John Dale Beety