Challenge
Yourself With Gold Type Collection By Paul M. Green, Numismatic News
February 19, 2009
It's
easy to forget that the idea behind coin collecting is not
to get rich quick, but to enjoy yourself. Of course, having
the coins you buy go up in price is good, too, but sometimes
in the quest to find good deals and to fill holes it is easy
to forget that coin collecting is a hobby. That means the
primary purpose is to spend time in a pleasant way.
In some respects I had an advantage in growing
up with the hobby at a time that anything seemed possible
and everything was interesting. I continue to look at things
through the prism of those formative years.
In collecting coins from circulation, the
prime purpose was always to fill holes and to have fun doing
it. I probably had as much fun one day restoring dates on
Buffalo nickels as I had in almost any other day in my childhood.
A Buffalo nickel with a restored date was not going to be
worth any more than its face value, but simply filling an
entire set in one lazy summer afternoon while a nervous mother
hoped nothing would explode was a glorious way to spend a
day.
It might well have been the best way to start
collecting and perhaps it is a good reason to try to collect
the 50 state quarters from circulation as there never seemed
to be any real pressure in terms of whether your coins were
going up or down in price.
The fact was, having not spent more than face
value for any coin in my collection for a couple years, there
was no pressure. The only direction they could go in price
was up. That would change over time, but the simple joy of
filling holes was more than enough for me.
It was much the same way with when I turned
to gold. Today it is hard to imagine the idea of a gold coin
collection being essentially a case of nothing ventured, nothing
gained, but in 1970 the gold coin situation was very different.
Back in 1970 almost no one collected gold
coins. There was a simple reason: the gold price changed very
little if at all. Moreover, many were still uncertain about
the legal status of gold. It was illegal to own gold bullion.
It was illegal to own many gold coins dated after 1933 and
virtually all gold coins dated after 1959, but it was perfectly
legal to own gold coins struck and issued before 1934.
The gold recall order of 1933 really cast
a shadow over gold ownership. The combination of factors saw
very few if any hobbyists collecting gold, and that would
only change slowly.
From all my previous years of collecting,
which by 1970 numbered more than a decade, I can barely ever
even remember seeing a gold coin in a coin shop, and I had
almost taken up residence in some coin shops over the years.
About the only time you would even see a gold coin was if
you went to a coin show or major coin dealer or department
store that had a numismatic department - which some did at
the time.
Otherwise, the closest thing I remember to
a gold coin was a gold-plated 1883 "No Cents" nickel
and a couple pieces of California fractional gold that might
well have been tokens and not coins as they were mixed in
with my favorite coin display, which was in the front window
of a barber shop by the old train station.
By 1970 I was relatively confident that I
had my college obligations figured out, with the exception
of the foreign language requirement, and I could take time
to do some reading I had been meaning to do. Some of that
reading involved numismatics and some involved gold. Suddenly,
for the first time in my life, I began to consider the idea
of owning a gold coin.
The first obvious thing I noticed was that
gold coins were expensive. Fortunately, I was making money
by working on the school paper, so I could consider the top
of the line, which looked to be a Saint-Gaudens double eagle.
Actually, I could have opted for a Coronet Head double eagle,
but how can anyone resist the Saint-Gaudens double eagle design
at essentially the same price?
By the time I had figured it all out, my Saint-Gaudens
double eagle was going to run me about $75. That would put
a strain on my finances, but I was still determined I was
going to have a double eagle.
In my life, I have spent a lot of nervous
time waiting for important packages to arrive. A mixed roll
of Indian Head cents was high on that list once, but nothing
was any worse than waiting for my Saint-Gaudens double eagle.
It turned out to be worth the wait.
It is really hard to put into words just how
good your first Saint-Gaudens double eagle in your hand makes
you feel. That is one reason I was happy with my about uncirculated
example. Without fear of it losing value, I could hold it
and enjoy it. I could also show it off and I did so. My girlfriend
being a coin collector, and an even more accomplished coin
spender, immediately wanted one.
My European History professor, who was also
my advisor, called me in for a serious heart-to-heart conversation,
not about my fiasco with the French language, but rather about
his interest in obtaining gold coins depicting some of the
past kings and queens of England.
The worst was a friend who clearly spent far
too much time watching movies. At the time, dressed all in
black and riding his motorcycle, he seemed like some sort
of movie character. After examining my double eagle carefully,
he tried to bite it, leaving an impression on the coin. "It's
real!" he announced triumphantly, as though he had tested
gold coins with his teeth all his life. I had no response
although I did have a secret hope he would need major surgery
on his tooth.
Even having had my new double eagle violated
in such a manner, nothing could dampen my joy over the new
coin, which I was carting around everywhere. The grade had
already been lowered from its original less-than-lofty AU,
so I really had nothing to lose. It was a joy simply pulling
it out and looking at it any time I wanted. As it turned out,
my professor got the bug, too, and promptly I was ordering
a set of gold British sovereigns for him. I did not make any
money on the transaction, although I think to this day it
played a major role in what was viewed as my miraculous passing
of the required French examination.
Ordering coins for my professor was satisfying,
but I still wanted more and decided that the logical approach
was a gold type set. I would have been happy to collect Saint-Gaudens
double eagles. I had to be realistic about my finances, however,
and there was no way I could afford double eagles on a regular
basis.
It was a major sacrifice simply to acquire
a Coronet Head double eagle. While it, too, was a great coin,
there was something about the Saint-Gaudens design that could
not be topped. That is why it was no surprise about 15 years
later in 1986 when that design was selected for the gold American
Eagles as it is perfect for a large gold coin.
Having taken care of my two double eagles,
I decided to turn my attention on the rest of the basic eight-piece
gold type set. I had no problem ordering by mail, but one
week in early November I decided to take a tour of local coin
shops to see what they might have in stock.
I did not have a lot of money, and back in
1970 it did not cost a lot of money to buy a Coronet Head
quarter eagle, half eagle or eagle, and the Indian Head versions
of the three denominations were roughly the same price. The
Saint-Gaudens Indian Head gold eagle was usually just a little
more.
It was getting late in the afternoon when
I started my tour and, being early November in Wisconsin,
it was already getting dark. My first stop produced a surprising
reaction. I asked the owner if he had any gold coins and was
told bluntly, "They aren't legal." It was too late
and he was too serious to get into that discussion, but it
shows that even 37 years after the gold recall order of 1933
there was still misunderstanding and suspicion when it came
to gold coins.
The process of completing my eight-coin gold
type set went slowly, largely because of my finances. Still,
every coin was interesting. There were always little facts
that would surface as I studied each, such as how the Indian
Head quarter eagles and half eagles had touched off a lively
debate over whether the coins were unhealthy because of their
incuse motifs. I found it as interesting that even a few years
before James Earle Fraser's Buffalo nickel, Bela Lyon Pratt
had opted to use a real Native American as a model, so for
the first time an Indian Head design actually looked like
a real Native American.
I don't know which meant more, the college
diploma or the eight-piece gold type set I completed at about
the same time. As it turned out, I guess the two went together.
What I learned in obtaining my history degree has come in
handy in writing about coins.
I did not really see my post-college job at
the Neenah-Menasha Chamber of Commerce as entering the cold
hard world, but rather an opportunity to boost my income.
As it turned out, my new office was only a few blocks from
the major Menasha coin shop, which was run by Dick Anderson
who also just happened to deliver our mail every day.
It was perfect. I would get an update on what
was new in inventory every day, and the store was on my way
home every night. It was easy to get them to stay open a few
minutes if I wanted to look at something.
If Anderson had had his way, I would probably
never have purchased things like rugs or a TV for my apartment.
He always had far more ideas for coins I needed than my budget
would support. That said, he and his wife loved coins and
so did I, so we hit it off well, periodically going to dinner.
Eventually they even invited me to a couple shows as their
guest.
Among the many ideas Dick had was that I needed
to expand my eight-piece type set to include the three different
gold dollars as well as the expensive gold $3. That was one
of his ideas that I took up, and the Type 1 and Type 3 gold
dollars were quickly added to the set, if not quite in the
grade Dick would have liked.
I explained to him that I had a long history
of filling holes with whatever coins I could reasonably afford
and that paying much more for a better grade at age 22 was
still not quite possible. My income had to catch up with his
taste for top grades.
The Type 2 gold dollar was going to be a problem.
Issued for just a few years and with no date having a mintage
of even a million, there is really no common Type 2 gold dollar.
That is just a fact of life. I was reconciled to adding an
1854 or 1855 to my set until one day Dick greeted me with
"Why don't you add a really rare coin to your set?"
With that greeting, I suspected there was
trouble. Sure enough, Dick was explaining the importance of
the gold dollar in the holder in front of him before I even
had a chance to examine it. The coin at best was a VF-20,
but it was an 1855-C, mintage 9,803. That mintage certainly
got my attention. I had never even imagined owning a U.S.
coin with a mintage of less than 10,000.
"Think of what the price would be if
it was a Mercury dime with that mintage," Dick cheerfully
observed. He had a point, but it was not a Mercury dime so
the demand was much less, which meant it would never come
close to the sort of price a Mercury dime would bring had
it had such a low mintage.
I told Dick I would have to sleep on it. While
doing that, Dick was already outlining a convenient payment
plan. If I played my cards right and ate at Chamber of Commerce
functions almost every night, I could potentially have the
coin paid off quickly, simply by not buying food.
I had told Dick I would sleep on it, but in
fact I could not sleep thinking about how rare that 1855-C
gold dollar was. Its mintage was so low and its chances for
survival so poor that there could not be many in any grade.
I decided I had to have it although the payment
terms would have to be a little longer than Dick's "live
free off local business meetings" approach, which had
been at least half in jest anyway. Once I had the coin, I
could not put it down. I examined it repeatedly, wishing it
could talk so that I could learn where it had been since 1855.
If there was any negative other than its low grade, it was
the fact that it probably took away some from my final purchase
of an 1854 $3 gold piece, a legitimately tough coin that when
compared to an 1855-C gold dollar does not seem as special
as it might normally.
Suddenly, however, I had a real void in my
life - my gold type set was now basically complete. Dick was
quick to point out that there were earlier gold issues not
normally considered to be part of the set. I agreed but said
I needed a while to think about it or other options.
I came close to adding to my set a number
of times. There was an 1801 $10 at a Milwaukee Numismatists
of Wisconsin show, and I came close to making a deal through
Dick on that coin. The coin was just an F-12 and was at a
reasonable price that almost seemed worth the financial sacrifice.
The fact that I remember it decades later shows how interested
I was.
It might have been another case where the
1855-C hurt the other coin by comparison as with a mintage
placed at 44,344, the 1801 eagle would have seemed great in
many situations, but compared to the 1855-C it looked more
common. What it had was age, but in the end I passed on the
eagle and bought a Bust dollar instead.
The other gold coins that had me seriously
tempted were the William Kneass Classic Head quarter eagles
and half eagles that began in 1834. In fairness, the Classic
Head quarter eagles and half eagles are more expensive than
a Coronet Head quarter eagle or half eagle, but they are almost
certainly worth the price. I have always felt they basically
fall between the cracks of interest, making them great values
as they are not the scarce early gold issues of the United
States and neither are they included in usual type sets.
The Classic Head quarter eagles and half eagles
were really issues of a pivotal time. The amount of gold they
contained was reduced slightly, enabling them to circulate
where the old issues would not. The Classic Head coins, because
of their higher mintages, are assumed to be available, but
remember they were only produced for a few years. The Coronet
Head design was in production by the 1840s.
The total number of Classic Head coins produced
was not that high and they had to survive a long time to be
in the market today. As a result, I always thought they were
probably inexpensive. Even being partial toward acquiring
an example, though, I never really found one at the grade
and price that made it impossible to resist.
To this day I still have mixed emotions about
not adding to my gold type set. I also question why I did
not make a few different choices, such as adding a potentially
better date $3 gold as opposed to the more available 1854.
A better date would have been only a couple hundred dollars
more. While a lot of money for me at the time, it would have
been money well spent in terms of increasing my enjoyment
of the coin.
Such second-guessing has never taken away
from the enormous fun I had with my gold type collection.
I showed it to countless startled non-collectors who were
suddenly confronted with my gold collection whether they wanted
to see it or not. The Saint-Gaudens double eagle more than
paid for itself in such experiences, even with that unfortunate
bite mark. The 1855-C gold dollar was very much the same.
It had been a lot of money for me at the time, but the hours
I spent with that coin made its purchase one of the best I
have ever made.
Certainly my gold type set was not in the
highest grade and it was not evenly matched in grade - it
probably reflected my slightly scattered personality of the
time. It had been enormously interesting to assemble and to
own. It also rose in price as gold moved to over $800 1980
but that was secondary, even though no coins I have ever owned
have ever gone up so much in price in such a short period.
The enjoyment was priceless then and remains priceless today.