1861-S $20 MS(PCGS#8935)

December 2025 Showcase Auction - The James A. Stack, Sr. Collection Part I

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

20032

等级

MS63

价格

356,040

详细说明

A phenomenal condition rarity from the earliest years of San Francisco Mint operations. Beautiful surfaces are drenched in deep rose-orange color that blends with bountiful, softly frosted mint luster. There are hints of semi-reflectivity in the field. The strike is well executed with most design elements sharply rendered, and none less than bold. A few faint hairlines require magnification to discern, the same generally true of the small number of handling marks that find greatest concentration in the expansive left obverse field area. Survivors of this issue are seldom seen in Mint State, and hardly ever with the lustrous and overall smooth appearance that define this virtually unsurpassable piece.<p>Despite the rustic nature of the first San Francisco Mint and the trying conditions under which it operated during the 1850s and early 1860s, the facility was able to maintain yearly production of double eagles, these being the preferred coins of the financial and mercantile communities, and for use both domestically and in the export trade. This focus, however, became the root of another challenge for the early San Francisco Mint - its ability to supply sufficient silver and small denomination gold coinage to meet the needs of the local population for everyday use. As Nancy Y. Oliver and Richard G. Kelly (2014) report:<p><em>Since the mint was focusing most of its attention on the production of double eagle, some disgruntled citizens let their frustration be known that small gold coin was in short supply. For example, on December 4th [1860], a letter appeared in the </em>Daily Alta<em> entitled, "A Growl from a Stage Agent." The letter went as follows: "I would make the enquiry, whether 'our servants' at the U.S. Branch Mint, at San Francisco, ever coin anything else but twenty dollar pieces? In this end of Sonoma County, California, we scarcely ever see a coin of any other denomination that has emanated from this institution. Twenty-dollar pieces are as great a nuisance at present, as the 'slugs' or fifty-dollar pieces were formerly. The subscriber is a stage agent, and day after day he is worried into committing great sin, in his hasty anathemas on these big lumps of gold. Does it rain in torrents, then, every passenger will snugly ensconce himself in the stage without first coming 'to the office and selling,' and everyone, with scarcely and exception, as you approach to collect fare, will give you a twenty to change, then although you have provided yourself with all the change in town, you have to run around in the mud and rain for at least half an hour, your stage behind time, and everybody out of humor."</em><p>Despite such calls, which seem to have been at least partly answered by a growing commitment to half dollar production, the double eagle remained the denomination of choice for the Mint's most influential clients. As such, and after producing 19,250 examples in early 1861 using the famed Paquet Reverse, the San Francisco Mint went on to strike an additional 768,000 double eagles using the pre-existing "regular" Longacre reverse. This is a respectable total for the era, most of the coins entering commercial channels in the West, where they were eagerly accepted by banks, bullion brokers, and large merchants. The heavy circulation to which they were then subjected left most in well worn condition. Recovered treasure ship finds have yielded the majority of the estimated 40 to 55 Mint State coins, most of which have already been snatched up by collectors and are solidly off the market as part of tightly held collections. For the particularly advanced numismatist, this offering of one of the three finest graded by PCGS provides an opportunity to acquire a condition rarity par excellence.