When a gold coin's Mint mark makes all the difference

Nearly $60 million in rare coins and currency traded hands at auctions during this year’s American Numismatic Association World’s Fair of Money in Anaheim, Calif.

Stack’s Bowers Galleries totaled more than $21 million in its official ANA auctions while Heritage saw more than $38 million in its sales.

Stack’s Bowers Executive Vice President Christine Karstedt said after the sale, “Collectors demonstrated an enthusiasm for originality and true rarity across all series, indicating demand for premium quality coins at every level from common date Morgan dollars to world-class rarities.”

Here is one of three sold gold coins we're profiling in this week's Market Analysis:

The Coin

1883-O Coronet gold $10 eagle, EF-45

The Price

$36,425

The Story

At first glance this looks like a common and kind of dirty 1880s Coronet half eagle. But the small “O” Mint mark found on the reverse identifies it as a rare 1883-O coin that is one of the rarest products of the New Orleans Mint. 

The small mintage of just 800 coins saw heavy circulation and fewer than 50 1883-O Coronet gold eagles are known today, most graded Extremely Fine or lower.  

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The offered example, graded Extremely Fine 45 by PCGS, sold for $36,425 at Stacks Bowers Galleries’ Aug. 11 Rarities Night auction as part of a set of Coronet gold eagles simply called “Dean’s Gold Eagles” in the catalog. The collector spent more than a decade assembling what would become the fifth all-time finest PCGS Registry Set of the type.

The same coin had previously sold at Heritage’s 2010 January Florida United Numismatists auction for $25,875.

Keep reading about notable gold coins sold at the 2016 World's Fair of Money:

1797 Capped Bust, Small Eagle $10 leads gold rush at World’s Fair of Money


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