1855 Kellogg $20 (1855 Kellogg $20) NGC AU55. This choice Territorial 1855 Kellogg Double Eagle has a strong, full strike, which gives the coin a premium quality appearance. The lines of Libertys hair above her eye and ear show sufficient separation to warrant the grade. The KELLOGG & CO is sharp as are the other legends and devices. Significant mint luster remains on both sides of the coin.

The coins obverse shows Liberty facing left in profile surrounded by thirteen six-pointed stars with the date below. Except for the KELLOGG & CO. inscribed tiara, it is the same obverse as the federal issue of the time. The reverse also duplicates James Longacres double eagle, but its legend is SAN FRANCISCO CALIFORNIA instead of United States of America. The motto E Pluribus Unum has also be omitted from the reverse.

Any gold mining operation needs refining capacity. Certainly this capacity was limited in the 1840s and 50s in California. The main problem was the lack of parting acids necessary to refine the oar. Most California oar had a high gold content, and it was struck without alloy. However, the fineness varied from 850 to 925 thousandths. Gold produced at the U.S. Mint had to be .900 fine by law. Because the acids were not available, government coining did not begin until 1854. When the acid supply diminished, minting operations were suspended. However, the coining needs continued especially because most low denomination gold coins had been melted. Kellogg & Co. was one of the firms that was able to fulfill this need.

John Kellogg, originally from Auburn, New York, was born in Marcellus, New York in Onondaga County. He was a lawyer and member of the bar in Auburn. Before opening up a law practice, he joined the Cayuga joint Stock Company. The Company left New York for California in February 1849. Kellogg went to San Francisco by sailing on the ship Belvedere. He reached California in October 1849. Kellogg, who had been a cashier for Moffat & Co. and was with them during the time they served as the United States Assay Office, was asked by local bankers to mint coins

Beginning in February 1854, Kellogg & Co. issued gold double eagles. He claimed that he could make them at the rate of 1,000 per day. The dies were made by Kuner and greatly resembled the federal coinage of the time. In its two years of operation, Kellogg & Co. minted more than six million dollars in gold double eagles. These coins were widely used and universally accepted.

Today the Kellogg twenties are available largely because of a hoard of 58 coins found in Nebraska in 1907. The story is that two ranchers hid the coins in 1867 while they were being pursued by Indians. The coins were found by two boys who were playing forty years later in the woods near Alexandria, Nebraska.