It is unusual to see very well-worn gold coins without accompanying problems, since the softness of gold as a metal lends itself to marks and rim nicks and dings.

Further, gold coins, because of their high face value, did not circulate to the extent that silver, copper-nickel or bronze coins did. The “Red Book” doesn’t even price Coronet gold types in grades below Very Fine.

This 1873-CC Coronet gold $5 half eagle graded Very Good 10 is one of the lowest grades for this popular Carson City Mint issue certified by Professional Coin Grading Service. It is from a low mintage of 7,416 pieces, and the $4,080 that it brought at the Stack’s Bowers Aug. 17 ANA auction was a discount from the $5,200 that a PCGS Fine 12 representative brought at Heritage’s February Long Beach auction.

Inside Coin World: Junk boxes offer a lot for a little: Reports about junk box “treasures” and what else a discovery of Roman treasure coins reveals in England are just two of the articles found exclusively in Coin World.

The two coins were comparable in terms of remaining detail in Liberty’s hair and in the eagle’s wings on the reverse, suggesting that the winning buyer in Philadelphia may have gotten a bit of a bargain. 

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