1865-S $20 Brother Jonathan (1865-S Double Eagle Bro Jo) NGC MS62. This Civil War dated, branch mint, shipwrecked 1865-S Double Eagle is fully struck on both sides. The obverse shows full stars and dentils, and the reverse has full details throughout. No wear is seen on the coin, as expected for an MS62 specimen. Vibrant mint luster is seen on both surfaces, especially in protected areas.

James B. Longacre designed the double eagle. It shows a Liberty head facing left wearing coronet inscribed LIBERTY. Her hair is tightly tied in the back with two loose curls hanging down her neck to the end of the truncation. She is surrounded by thirteen six pointed stars with the date below. Dentils are near the edge on both sides of the coin. The reverse shows a heraldic eagle with elaborate ribbons on both sides of the shield extending from the top corner down to the eagles tail feathers. The ribbons are inscribed, on the left E PLURIBUS and UNUM on the right. The ribbons were added to the design to symbolize the denomination since this was the first twenty dollar coin. There is an oval of thirteen stars above the eagles head and an arc of rays from wing tip to wing tip behind the upper half of the oval. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is in an arc above the eagle, and the denomination TWENTY D. is below. The mint mark is between the tail feathers and the N of TWENTY.

The S.S. Brother Jonathan was built in 1851 by Edward Mills, a New Yorker who wanted to operate a shipping business during the Gold Rush era. The ship was 220 feet long and 36 feet wide. It traveled from New York to Panama. Its passengers would cross the Isthmus of Panama and proceed to California in another ship. In 1852, Cornelius Vanderbilt purchased the Brother Jonathan to replace one of his ships that had been wrecked. He had it sail around Cape Horn and used it on the Pacific to travel to California. Vanderbilt had the ship rebuilt to accommodate more passengers. In 1856 the ship was sold to Captain John Wright, who renamed it the Commodore. It traveled up the coast from San Francisco to Vancouver and back.

By 1861, the ship was in poor condition. It was sold to the California Steam Navigation Company and retrofitted. The original name was restored, and it continued to service the route from San Francisco to Vancouver. The Brother Jonathan was one of the fastest ships to sail that route and had a reputation for being one of the finest steamers on the Pacific Coast.
In 1865, the ship was headed from San Francisco to Portland. It carried about 150 passengers, a crew of 60 and a large cargo that included an unknown quantity of gold coins. The ship ran into heavy winds and put in to port at Crescent City. In the morning the voyage was resumed, but the seas were still rough. The captain ordered it returned to port, but it struck a submerged rock that was hidden just below the surface of the water. The ship sank along with most of the passengers, crew, and captain.

In the 1990s a group of investors formed Deep Sea Research, Inc. and found the ship. More than 1000 gold coins were recovered.