Heritage to Offer Rare Civil War-Era Gold Piece!

Dallas, Texas: Heritage Galleries & Auctioneers (HG&A) will offer an 1865 $20 MS65 NGC at their official January 3-7, 2006 Florida United Numismatists Signature Auction.

"At the tail end of the Civil War, few gold coins were struck," said Greg Rohan, President of HG&A, "and most were immediately hoarded and melted. The mintage of this issue was 351,175 coins, and the survival rate is quite small in any Mint State grade, let alone Gem quality."

"This was the year of two shipwrecks," Rohan said, "both important in numismatic circles. On July 30, 1865, the S.S. Brother Jonathan sank off the coast of Crescent City, California, in the far northern part of that state. Although many searches for the ship and its treasure took place, it was not until the 1990s that a successful recovery took place. Deep Seat Research, Inc. located the treasure, and recovered over 1,200 gold coins, mostly 1865-S Double Eagles in Mint State condition. There were also two 1865 Double Eagles from the Philadelphia Mint."

"About three months after the sinking of the Brother Jonathan," Rohan continued, "the S.S. Republic sank off the coast of Georgia, the result of a hurricane. This ship was finally located in July 2003 by Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. By January 2004, over 17,000 coins had been recovered along with several hundred other artifacts."

"Offered here is a remarkable Type I Double Eagle with brilliant light yellow gold surfaces and exceptional mixed luster," Rohan said, "mostly frosty but with satiny obverse fields. The obverse is covered with fine diagonal die lines, slanting down to the right, while the reverse has a few lines down to the left. Excellent surfaces with only a few trivial marks, including a small nick and faint hairlines on Liberty's cheek, along with a few other marks in the fields. The strike is sharp, and is essentially full on both sides, we do not see any apparent design weakness. The obverse has a slanting die line extending through the upper part of star 4, and into the field. The reverse has a fine die polishing line through the first three shield stripes, almost looking like an extension of the bottom edge of the eagle's wing."

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