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(1855-57) Kellogg & Humbert 37-Ounce Gold Ingot....
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Sold on Jul 31, 2009 for:
$92,000.00
Bid Source: Internet bidder
Description
Historic Kellogg & Humbert Gold Assay Bar
37 Ounces, Recovered From S.S. Central America
(1855-57) Kellogg & Humbert 37-Ounce Gold Ingot. 52 mm x 43
mm x 33 mm. CAGB-420. At top, and reading downward vertically, NO
(number abbreviation in typical style) 367 / 37.08 OZ / 784 FINE /
$600.94. The serial number 367 is repeated on the back. The KELLOGG
/ & / HUMBERT / ASSAYERS rectangular imprint is on the right side.
There are triangular assay cuts at bottom right and top right on
the back side after a medallic turn. Some minor flaking is noted on
both sides, not at all unusual for such pieces.John Glover Kellogg arrived in San Francisco in October 1849 and soon gained a position with Moffat & Company, where Augustus Humbert worked as U.S. Assayer in 1851-52. Kellogg remained with that firm in 1852-53 when the U.S. Assay Office was reorganized as Curtis, Perry, and Ward. The U.S. Assay Office operations were discontinued in December 1853. Kellogg began a new firm in association with G.F. Richter, who had also worked as a government assayer. The firm of Kellogg & Richter was set up in that same month. Kellogg & Richter issued a large quantity of twenty dollar gold coins in 1854, with authority passing to Kellogg & Humbert in 1855, all of those 1854- and 1855-dated coins bearing the same KELLOGG & CO imprint on Liberty's coronet.
The Kellogg & Humbert coins were well known from the large production, even though the fledgling U.S. Mint at San Francisco, now under the auspices of Curtis and Perry (Ward had died), had managed to produced sporadic mintages of gold coins in 1854 and 1855.
However, before the S.S. Central America recovery, no gold ingots were known of Kellogg & Humbert in any size, nor yet of any of the other four assayers discovered (Bowers, page 991). The 500+ ingots recovered from Kellogg & Humbert and the other assayers form an incalculably valuable, historic documentation of the California Gold Rush. As Ronald Gillio is quoted in Bowers' A California Gold Rush:
"These [private assay office gold ingots] are unique in many respects. Basically, none of the 1856-7 gold ingots from these assayers exist today [before the Central America recovery], as they were on their way to New York to be melted, as, indeed, happened to virtually all other such ingots. Although I have been a student and collector of territorial and private assay ingots, most of those that survive are very small ingots, nearly all of silver, with a very low percentage of gold. They have survived because they were often family keepsakes."
This medium-sized, almost cubelike ingot is plated on page 428 of Bowers' reference and listed in Appendix IV on pages 1005-6. Like all such ingots, it is a unique collectible that forms a historic font of information concerning California's historic Gold Rush era.
From The San Patricio Collection.
View all of [The San Patricio Collection ]
Auction Info
2009 August Los Angeles, CA US Coin Auction #1128 (go to Auction Home page)
Auction Dates
Jul-Aug, 2009
31st-2nd
Friday-Sunday
Bids + Registered Phone Bidders: 12
Lot Tracking Activity: N/A
Page Views: 2,759
Buyer's Premium per Lot:
15% of the successful bid per lot.
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