Stack’s Bowers Galleries’ official auctions of the Whitman Baltimore Summer Expo included a June 21 session in which a number of rare gold coins were offered, including some pieces that illustrate different entry points for rarities.

You can read about two of those coins here and here. Here is a third one of those coins.

The coin:

1905 Coronet gold $20 double eagle, Proof 55

The price:

$7,800

The story:

Rarely are any Proof Coronet $20 double eagles described as inexpensive, but this 1905 double eagle graded PCGS Proof 55 that sold for $7,800 is about as “cheap” as they come. 

The strike is razor sharp as expected, and there are hints of the original deeply mirrored reflective fields in the protected areas, like around the stars on the obverse and in the eagle’s shield on the reverse. The broad fields on both sides show plenty of evidence of friction, a telltale sign of circulation. 

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As the description observed, “Proof double eagles were costly to acquire and retain even at the time of production, and many examples went unsold at year’s end and were later melted or placed into circulation.”

The auction included other impaired Proof strikes that provided some ground-floor opportunities for buyers, including two 1901 double eagles graded Proof 58, one graded by PCGS and the other by Numismatic Guaranty Corp., that each realized $9,000.

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