Everyone Should
Have Good Time With Gold
The Numismatic News
By Paul M. Green
Gold
is once again having a good period. It is not the first
time and it will certainly not be the last.
People ask what I think about the weak dollar and gold
coins as a collection. My response is usually the same:
I am not ter¬ribly concerned about what the dollar
does against whatever the currency of choice is at the
time, and to my mind the idea of a gold coin collection
is always great. Few things in life are more fun than
gold coins and I consider that true whether the price
is going up or going down. For most people, including
myself, the idea of a gold coin collection has to be
somewhat limited.
Don't let the "gold" in "gold
coin type set" scare you off. You can get a common
date gold $20, like the 1896, for around $725 in MS-60.
After all, in a Saint-Gaudens double
eagle collection alone there are potentially three
$1 million dollar dates in the form of the Ultra High
Relief 1907, the 1927-D and the 1933. A number of
other gold collections also have potential $1 million-plus
dates, and even those that don't usually have some
very tough and expensive dates.
The fact is that having complete sets of gold coins,
particularly those struck for circulation prior to
the gold recall of 1933, is not really possible for
all but a select few. Collecting gold coins, however,
is not lim¬ited to complete sets. There are a
number of other ways to approach gold coins as a col¬lection,
and at least to me they have always been fun, starting
with a gold type set.
There are a number of possible gold types sets, starting
with four or eight coins and expanding to 12 coins
and beyond. All offer the potential of acquiring pieces
primarily at bullion-related prices, although the
more coins in a set, the more you are likely to have
coins that are not priced strictly at bullion-related
prices. That said, even gold coins not priced basically
at bullion levels tend to move in price when the price
of gold moves.
I can easily remember considering my first gold coins.
1 was in my junior year of college. Reading books
about gold and coin publications was far more interesting
than the reading list for my courses. I had already
collected most coins of the United States with the
exception of gold. Even when I had stopped finding
coins in circulation for my various sets, I had cheerfully
began collecting type coins and other issues like
Indian Head cents. The Indian Head cent set had only
reached the halfway point, and the type collection
was limited to things like 2-cent pieces, but I was
always happy with coins that 1 had never seen in circulation.
Even my mother seemed vaguely interested in something
like a 2-cent piece as the first coin to have "IN
GOD WE TRUST." She expressed no such interest
in my collections of reptiles or rusty Civil War bayonets.
Maybe I had an advantage in that by the time 1 first
considered gold type coins, I had already accepted
the idea that I could cheerfully collect coins without
ever com¬pleting the sets. I was certainly not
going to complete Lincoln cents although I had all
but a couple dates. I had a Morgan silver dollar from
every Mint facility that had produced them, and I
had assorted type coins, such as the 2-cent piece,
that were never going to amount to a complete collection
and I knew it.
I never expected to put
a date as scarce as the 1855-C gold $1 in my
gold type col¬lection. The opportunity arose,
however, and I was pleased to acquire it
The attraction of gold coins was only
mildly the fact that gold might go up in price. Back
in 1970 when a Saint-Gaudens double eagle might be
$75, there was really very little reason to think
in terms of major gold price movements. In fact, gold
coins either went up because collectors wanted them
or they barely moved at all in terms of price. If
you wanted gold coins, there had to be a pretty good
reason other than making a gold play.
My reason at the time was basically curiosity. 1 had
never owned a gold coin and had only seen a couple
quarter eagles. The coin shops in the 1950s did not
carry much in the way of gold coins, or at least the
small shops I had grown up visiting every Saturday
did not, probably in large part because there was
little or no demand for them. Moreover, even at $75
or so for a Saint-Gaudens double eagle, gold corns
were expensive. No small coin dealer was going to
tie up that sort of money on a coin that was unlikely
to sell or go up in price; for $75 you could buy a
very nice coin that might go up in price and had a
pretty good chance of selling. As a result, unlike
today, I and probably many others had seen or handled
very few gold coins of any type.
Enough reading about gold and American history convinced
me that I wanted to have a gold coin. Of course, on
the budget of a student, that was a serious financial
problem. I made that problem worse by wanting not
a small quarter eagle, which might have been less
than $20, but rather by thinking in terms of a Saint-Gaudens
double eagle, which naturally was the most expensive
choice. It took saving. I was nervous for a couple
weeks, having never purchased a coin costing more
than $25, much less more than $70, but as it turned
out it was worth the wait.
The coin collector part of me was not happy, but the
rest of me could not resist the notion of showing
off my Saint-Gaudens double eagle when it arrived.
It was fun from the minute I opened the envelope -
until my friend in his best cowboy immitation tried
to take a bite out of it. Even though I was upset
by that stunt, telling about it has been fun for 35
years, and frankly I was surprised then and am surprised
now to know that if you bite a gold coin, it will
leave a tooth mark and not chip your tooth. I've seen
it with my own eyes.
Even with the bite, that Saint-Gaudens double eagle
immediately hooked me on the idea of a gold type set.
Realistically, just affording gold coins was such
a challenge dial I never for a minute thought about
whether they should be MS-63 or MS-65. I had an advantage
back then in that such grades were not used, but circulated
or uncirculated did not matter as all I could afford
were circulated coins. Even they took a lot of saving.
We all have our own favorite gold coins. I liked large,
so the Coronet Head double eagle was next on my list.
After that the eagles, half eagles and quarter eagles
did not seem to require any special order of purchase.
Moreover, I has hoping to have fun assembling the
collection, although at least some of what happened
was not what I expected.
With a small fortune of perhaps $30 in my pocket one
November Saturday, the sun going down seemingly early
as day-light-saving time had just ended, I headed
out to the coins shops along the Illinois-Wisconsin
border. I had no special purpose except to see if
I could buy a gold coin. At the time 1 needed everything;
I had just two double eagles, and my $30 would probably
not get me an eagle even if it was dam¬aged. I
was leaning toward an Indian Head quarter eagle or
half eagle because I was interested in the recessed
design and had never owned a coin with such a design.
It was a perfect case to illustrate the times. Stopping
in one shop, I was greeted by an owner or at least
manager who seemed to know something about coins.
He was not all that pleasant from the start, but I
had money in my pocket and I was ready saying I wanted
to buy a gold coin.
"We don't have any they aren't legal," he
shot back. Technically he was wrong, and I was surprised
he added the part about not being legal as they certainly
were legal. The gold recall order of 1933 had made
gold coins dated prior to the act basically legal.
The wording had never really been enforced in terms
of the coins needing historic or numismatic value,
so basically any pre-1933 gold coin was trading legally.
I probably could have had a debate with the man, but
his attitude told me it was not worth the time and
trouble. Plus, even if I could convince him that he
was wrong, he'd said he had no coins to sell, or at
least none he was willing to sell me. It was getting
late and there were other shops I could still visit.
As it was, although much more friendly, the other
shops also had no gold. It was really something of
an exception back in 1970 to find many small shops
with any gold.
By the time I had finished college, 1 had also finished
a basic eight-coin type set: the four Coronet Head
denominations and the three Indian Head denomiantions
plus the Saint-Gaudens double eagle. These eight gold
coins are the ones genrally priced at bullion-related
prices. If there were going to be any more coins in
my set, they would not be as closely tied to gold
prices. The three types of gold $ 1 s as well as a
gold $3 are tougher.
I was still uncertain where I would be taking my collection
next when my first job outside of college landed me
in something of a hotbed of collecting known as Menasha,
Wis. Actually, Menasha itself might not have been
a collecting hotbed, but located on the main street
was Dick Andersen's coin shop. The shop was actu¬ally
run by his wife most of the time as Dick was busy
delivering mail, but for me, whoever was in charge
was perfect. The Andersons had gold coins. As it worked
out, I was working at the Chamber of Commerce and
Dick delivered the mail there every day, which meant
that anytime he had something new in stock, I was
one of the first to know.
A type Saint-Gaudens gold $10
like this 1926 piece currently lists for just
under $600 in MS-60.
Anderson had plenty of ideas and coin-cidentally
seemed to have coins in his inventory that would work
perfectly to flesh out those ideas. He pointed out
that an eight-coin gold type set was not complete.
He was certainly right about that. I quickly added
a Type 1 (Liberty Head) gold $1 and a Type 3 {large
Indian Head) gold $1 but was not rushing into the
purchase of a Type 2 (small Indian Head) $1 or a gold
$3 as they are tougher and more expensive.
The Type 2 gold $ 1 was going to be my next purchase
under any circumstances, and I was content with the
notion of either an 1854 or 1855, the only two dates
with anything close to a significant mintage. Then
one day while making his regular rounds, Dick told
me to stop by the shop after work. He had something
to show me.
I got to his shop shortly after work and he reached
into the display case the minute I entered the door,
handing me a holder with the suggestion, "Why
don't you add a really rare coin to your set."
It was at first glance an 1855 gold $1, but when I
really looked at it, I realized it was not a routine
1855 - none are really routine anyway - but rather
this was an 1855-C, which had a mintage of just 9,803
pieces. That suddenly changed things. It also explained
the nearly $500 price even though the coin was barely
a VF-20. My legs almost gave out. I had never really
expected to hold a coin with such a low mintage and
certainly never expected to own one. Dick could see
I was hesitating. He quickly chimed in with, "Think
of what the price would be if it was a Mercury dime
with that mintage."
Realistically, I had never really thought about the
prospect of mixing better dates with my gold type
coins. Even with a job that paid the lofty sum of
nearly $200 a week, I had also never thought of spending
so much money on a coin. I took a day to think about
it, but Dick knew my love of low mintages and rarity.
Those considerations kept eating at me as this was
perhaps my one and only chance to own a coin so rare.
In fairness, it was a normal 1855-C, which means it
was not very nice. They were poorly made on usually
poor planchets and the whole thing does not translate
into much eye appeal. That said, I could not resist
and ended up making a deal involving regular payments.
Finally, once I had the coin in my set, I knew it
was well worth it. For a time 1 even considered changing
the others in my set to similar better dates. My finances,
however, were not that good.
Among the most available
gold $3s is the 1854, the first year of issue,
which lists at a price of about $1,100 in XF-40.
For many nights I would spend at least
a few minutes with my 1855-C, just looking at it and
trying to imagine where it had been over the years.
The coin probably paid for itself in fun in the first
year, the only negative being that it also probably
took away from the excitement of my $3 purchase. The
1854 gold $3, withamintage of 138,618, is the most
likely gold S3 for a type collection, and that was
true with me as well. Even an 1854 is an awftilly
good coin, but compared to the 1855-C gold $1 it did
not seem as tough as it would have seemed under normal
circumstances. That said side-by-side the two made
for quite a pair of tough gold coins. Many times when
we consider a date like the 1854, we fail to remember
how truly scarce it is simply because by comparison
it looks available. The 1854, as I kept reminding
myself, compares awfully well with items like 1916-D
Mercury dimes and 1909-S VDB Lincoln cents.
The whole process had been fun and educational, and
I was very tempted to expand my collection. The problem
was always my limited budget. An 1801 $10 eagle at
a Milwaukee show was very tempting. The coin was lower
grade with a couple nicks, and that made it lower
priced than is normal, but at $900 it still represented
safely over a month's pay. It was a very tough choice,
though, as like the 1855-C, I never expected to own
a coin like an 1801 gold eagle with a mintage placed
at 44,344.
In fact, the 1855-C may have played a small role in
influencing my decision to say no thanks. I already
had one very scarce gold coin and, as much as I would
have liked another, I was able to buy a Bust dollar
and go home with change in my pocket.
There were other potential purchases as well. Highest
on that list were the William Kneass Classic Head
quarter eagle and half eagle, which in many ways I
honestly think should be added to gold type sets.
They are affordable and they were the first of the
new 1834 quarter eagles and half eagles that had slightly
lower gold content than those from before 1834. Of
course, the collector in me that likes rare dates
would also consider the Classic Head coins from branch
mints, as it was the Classic Head quarter eagles and
half eagles that were the first U.S. gold coins to
be made at any facility other than Philadelphia. Being
older and lower mintage, the Classic Head quarter
eagles and half eagles are tough in Mint State, but
at the time that did not bother me as I was simply
having fun on a very limited budget. That meant that
my coins were circulated, and in the case of the Saint-Gaudens
double eagle, bitten, so having a slightly below-average
Classic Head quarter eagle or half eagle was not about
to bother me.
Throughout I simply had a great time looking at and
buying gold coins. In some respects 1 was sorry there
were not more coins in a type set. I was equally sorry,
in a way, when gold soared to $800 an ounce. At that
point it was impossible to resist sell¬ing, even
though I had enjoyed assembling the collection. 1
was still tempted to save the 1855-C gold $1 because
the gold price had very little impact on it, but I
resolved that if 1 was selling the others, it could
go, too. It was a way of justifying the profits, but
I was also content with the fact that it had given
me a great deal of joy over the years. Maybe the time
was right to let someone else have a chance.
Watching gold's price activity and the headlines again
makes me think back to my type collection with a lot
of warm memories. Most of us cannot collect gold coins
in the regular manner of a set of one type or another,
but virtually everyone can collect and enjoy gold
type coins, and that is what almost everyone should
consider. How you make your collection is up to you,
but there is no doubt a gold type collection is a
collection that is a lot of fun to assemble - and,
if gold goes up, to sell.