I just bought this 1851 One Dollar Gold coin -- a type coin I have wanted for my collection for about 20 years! The Type 1 Liberty Head One Dollar Gold coin is the smallest diameter coin ever struck for circulation in the U.S. -- checking in at 13.0 mm. The photo below shows the actual size of this tiny coin, alongside a Rosevelt dime that has a diameter of 17.9 mm. Could you imagine a pocketful of these small gold coins? Trying to pick them out of your pocket lint? Or the sound they might make if a bunch of them fell on the floor? I was trying to find a good example of a One Dollar Gold coin from a batch of raw and third party graded coins at my local dealer this afternoon. I stumbled across this raw Liberty Head Gold Dollar that had a ton of luster and looked very clean, tagged at $400. The only other Dollar Gold coin I liked in the batch was an NGC MS63 for $1200, but that was too much money for a coin that is actually hard to see! And honestly the little raw coin I ended up buying looked just as nice to my eye. I think it's possible the raw coin I purchased might only grade AU even though the coin appears to have a lot of luster; unless some of the lack of detail is from a weak stike (note the weak 1 in 1851). However I think it's pretty safe to say this is probably at least AU55 to 58 -- although I am amazed at how clean the fields are. It's hard to find a mark on this coin. The dealer initially wanted $400 for this coin as he thought it was at least MS60, but I was able to negotiate it down to $275, when I convinced him that it might only grade AU. (It helps that I do a lot of business there.) The price break between AU coins and higher grade MS coins is pretty steep with this series -- with AU's going in the $200's, MS60 around $350, MS61-62 in the $600's, MS63 in the $1200's. So for those interested in buying one of these, look for a nice lusterous AU coin (it's a much better deal). This is a very short-run series, as the Type 1 (Liberty Head) Gold Dollar variety was minted for only 6 years from 1849 to 1854. The Type 2 and Type 3 (Indian Princess) Gold Dollar designs that followed were the exact same weight, but made thinner with an increased diameter of 2 mm for a total new diameter of 15mm (a 15% increase in diameter over Type 1). Minting of these tiny One Dollar denomination Gold coins was discontinued in 1889 after only 40 years of production -- and twelve years after the popular Morgan Silver Dollar began production. These One Dollar Gold coins contain 1.5 grams (or 1/20th of an ounce) of gold. So the gold melt value (at today's spot) of one of these Dollar Gold coins is about $77. It's interesting to note that the melt value of a Morgan Silver Dollar (the other $1 coin circulating in the late 1880's) is around $30. In other words, today's melt value of an 1889 One Dollar Gold coin is 2.7 times more than today's melt value of an 1889 One Dollar Silver coin. So based on the Gold and Silver content on the two $1 coins way back in 1889 -- a dollars worth of Silver was 0.77 ounces (the Morgan Dollar content), while a dollars worth of Gold was 0.05 ounces (the Gold Dollar content). So in 1889, the Gold/Silver ratio was roughly 15 to 1. Fast forward to 2011, and the Gold/Silver ratio is closer to 39 to 1. That is, over the past 100 years, Gold has increased in value about 2.7x more than Silver. I wonder if this might imply that Silver is undervalued at today's prices? In any case, I thought I would share my little adventure today!
Nice write up! Congrats on that beautiful gold dollar. Nice photos too! Are you going to submit it for grading? It's not my series but I bought one a few years ago. Raw, like yours, for $200 and PCGS graded it AU58. I'll post pix if you want to compare it. Tiny coins alright. Too small for my old eyes. Can you imagine what a 25c or 50c California fractional gold piece looks like? I guess they didn't circulate much. But talk about losing one in your pocket's lint! Lance.
First of all, congratulations on your nice coin-- it does look like a very nice $1 Type 1. As for the price of gold and silver, one thing you should bear in mind is that the silver in the silver dollar in the 1880s was worth much less than the face value. As a result of the Comstock Lode and other Western silver bonanzas, which were producing silver at a rate that was far higher than the old 16:1 ratio, the price of silver had been declining precipitously. You can get a fairly good idea of that from this chart: http://www.sharelynx.com/chartsfixed/600yearsilvera.gif
lkeigwin, thank you. I like your coin as well! It's interesting to see what a PCGS AU58 coin looks like. Yours does seem to have more nicks and marks than mine. I dont have any plans to get it graded right now, but I probably should (just so I know). I will have to use PCGS as I dont like the way very small coins look in the new NGC slabs (with the prongs obscurring the too much of the coin). You know what I find the oddest thing about these coins? The lack of a date on the obverse. Other than some commemoratives, I can't think of another U.S. coin that didnt have a date on the obverse.
Yes, you should get it graded. There's too much fake gold out there and even though yours isn't, the holder will matter when it comes time to sell it. Yup, not many circulating business strike coins have the date on the obverse. $3 gold. And I guess the State quarters do unless somehow Washington has been moved to the reverse. Lance.
