The usual culprits led Stack’s Bowers Galleries’ Aug. 13 offering of The Fairmont Collection, this group called the Sussex Set. This offering featured 240 coins, with the typical original surfaces seen in the group — reportedly from a significant hoard that went overseas and is being reintroduced in the market carefully by Stack’s Bowers over multiple auctions. As the firm’s president Brian Kendrella said in his welcome letter, most were approved by Certified Acceptance Corp. and the mix included Carson City Mint examples, scarce Civil War era coins and some other classic low-mintage key dates.

As often seen with the Fairmont sessions, Carson City Mint Coronet gold $20 double eagles were the top lots, with two selling for $36,000 each. An 1885-CC double eagle graded Mint State 61 by Professional Coin Grading Service was one of just 9,450 struck, and Carson City specialist Rusty Goe has said that the survival rate “has for years befuddled specialists in U.S. gold coins,” although over the past few decades the pool of Mint State survivors has increased substantially. Goe adds, “The supply count has seemingly taken a roller-coaster ride of new heights, slight descents, back up again and then back down, until arriving at a fairly reliable estimate,” and his 2020 book estimates 360 to 425 exist in all grades with 20 to 25 Uncirculated survivors. This one displayed “a bold blend of honey-gold color and satin to softly frosted mint luster...with enhancing blushes of iridescent pinkish-apricot.” The price was a bit less than the $40,800 that a comparably graded example brought last year as part of the Fairmont Collection’s Rhone Set.

Also at $36,000 was another low mintage Carson City Mint issue: an 1891-CC $20 coin graded About Uncirculated 58 by PCGS and carrying a green CAC sticker. Just 5,000 were struck, making it the lowest mintage double eagle from the Nevada mint in the 1889 to 1893 era. Goe estimated in 2020 that 265 to 325 exist in all grades, with the majority of these in the Extremely Fine to About Uncirculated category. The offered 1891-CC example featured nearly complete luster and the price was the same as the $36,000 that another example from the Fairmont Collection graded PCGS MS-60 sold for in August 2023 as part of the Rhone set.

1911-D Indian Head $5

The occasional important 20th century date was encountered, like this 1911-D Indian Head gold $5 half eagle graded MS-63 by PCGS with a green CAC sticker that sold for $28,800. The 1911-D $2.50 quarter eagle is a key in that series, but the $5 issue saw a relatively low mintage of 72,500. Few seemed to have been saved by collectors.

As Stack’s Bowers writes, “The 1911-D coins were largely ignored when they entered commerce, and unlike many of the other larger denomination gold coins at the time, this issue did not have extended sojourns in overseas banks. Rather, based on the number of circulated examples that survive, a significant portion saw active commercial use, and were further reduced in quantity by the large scale Treasury melts of the late 1930s.”

This one exhibits “vivid honey-apricot surfaces”  along with a bold strike and a strong Denver Mint mark. The price was consistent with what a comparably graded example without the CAC sticker brought as part of the Rhone Collection in August 2023, though less than the $33,500 that a PCGS MS-63 CAC-approved example sold for on Nov. 2, 2022, in the Fairmont Collection CBL Set session and well-below the $48,000 that another PCGS MS-63 CAC-stickered 1911-D half eagle sold for as part of the Fairmont Collection’s Hendricks Set on Aug. 6, 2022.

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