Stack’s Bowers Galleries numismatist and cataloger, James McCartney, recently posted on the company’s website about the upcoming auction sale of the famed 1861 Dahlonega Gold Dollar. What makes this coin so interesting is that all 1861-D gold dollars were struck by the Confederacy. Despite a vacuum of knowledge and skills relevant to the minting process, … Read more
Professional numismatist and rare coin dealer Doug Winter recently posted his analysis of the Dr. Steven Duckor’s gold dollar collection that sold at the Heritage 2014 Platinum Night auction session, August 13, 2015, ANA U.S. Coins Auctions in Chicago, Illinois. The collection contained two of the finest know Charlotte and Dahlonega one-dollar gold coins. The … Read more
Before I began researching the amount of gold coinage produced by the members of the Bechtler family in North Carolina in the mid-19th century, I consulted my copy of Private Gold Coins and Patterns of the United States by Donald Kagin. The book includes a table that is probably familiar to anyone acquainted with the Bechtler … Read more
The Annual Report of the Director of the Mint normally included details that year’s coin production. However, the 1887 Annual Report included, for the first time, a table showing the mintage by denomination and mint, for each year from 1792. The Report stated that “[t]his valuable table, which has been compiled with no little care and … Read more
The operations of the New Orleans Mint, unlike the other US Mints, clearly fall into two periods: the Antebellum Period (from 1838 to early 1861), when the New Orleans Mint operated in a thriving city that exported the products of the Mississippi River valley and, the Post-Civil War Period (from 1878 to 1909), when New Orleans … Read more
For the citizens of the United States, and as well for the collector of Southern Gold, 1861 was a pivotal year in our history. Of course, this was the year in which the decades of tension between the northern states and the southern states finally devolved into what is now known as the Civil War. For … Read more