An 1851 Schultz & Company $5 half eagle graded About Uncirculated 53 by Professional Coin Grading Service and bearing a green Certified Acceptance Corp. sticker realized $432,000 at Heritage’s Jan. 14 Platinum Night auction in Dallas.

That price was significantly more than the $235,000 it brought at a 2013 Heritage sale.

Schultz & Co. was a brass foundry operated by Judge G.W. Schultz — the name is misspelled Shultz according to the “Red Book” — and William T. Garratt, though Heritage writes, “spellings of names often were inconsistent at the time, with ‘Schultz’ and ‘Shultz’ given by different sources.” Garratt also suffered the indignity of being listed as “Garrett” in various contemporary documents.

The firm was short-lived, as an assay showed its coins were underweight; today perhaps a dozen survive. Of this piece, Heritage added, “The dies are an early state without the cud over GOLD on the reverse,” observing, “Yellow-to-orange surfaces retain considerable luster, though the softly struck figure of Liberty shows spots of plain wear on the nose and brow, as does the eagle on head and claws.” 

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