I received this little beauty in today's mail. The Type 1 Liberty Head One Dollar Gold coin is the smallest diameter coin ever struck for circulation in the U.S. Measuring a mere 13.0 mm in diameter. This first year 1849 is of the NO "L" variety and has total mintage of only 1,000 coins. The Type 1 Liberty Head Gold Dollar variety was minted for only 6 years from 1849 to 1854. The Type 2 and Type 3 Gold Dollar designs that followed were the same weight, but made thinner with an increased diameter of 2 mm for a total new diameter of 15mm. The photo below shows the size of the $1 Liberty Head compared to a Roosevelt dime that has a diameter of 17.9 mm. The one dollar gold coin contains a mere 1.5 grams (roughly 1/20th of an ounce) of gold. DESIGNER: James Barton Longacre EDGE: Reeded DIAMETER: 12.70 millimeters WEIGHT: 1.70 grams MINTAGE: 1,000 MINT: Philadelphia METAL: 90% Gold, 10% Copper AUCTION RECORD: $69,000 • MS68 • 06-20-2007 • Stack's Please feel free post any $1 US Gold Coins you may have. Cheers, Eric the Red
Very nice presentation. So happens my Type 1 Liberty Head One Dollar Gold coin is also an 1849-O. Sorry for the low quality pics. Graded VF30 by NGC.
Let my arrange the description presentation a bit for you DESIGNER: James Barton Longacre EDGE: Reeded DIAMETER: 12.70 millimeters WEIGHT: 1.70 grams MINTAGE: 1,000 MINT: Philadelphia METAL: 90% Gold, 10% Copper (I have OCD ) Lovely gold. Thanks for sharing!
With the coin being so small, you'd think a lot of them would be lost and @paddyman98 would be finding them. I know of one used clothing store that thoroughly goes through the pockets of all their clothes, and often finds little goodies deep in the pockets, but no gold, that I know of.
I have a complete date and mint set of the Type I gold dollars. The only "Red Book" variety I don't have is the 1849-C with the Open Wreath. There are only 5 or 6 of those known, so I won't be getting one. Here's the best one I have, an 1853-P in MS-64 that might make MS-65 given today's "grade-flation." The dealer from whom I purchased it years ago had it set aside for a crack-out. I overpaid for it. This 1853-D has some nostalgia for me. When I was in the 5th grade, my mother’s cleaning lady brought her family heirloom group of gold dollars for me to see. I had never seen a gold dollar in my life, and could get over how small they were. I remember one was an 1853-D. That was the first Dahlonega coin I had ever seen. I would have liked to have bought it, but she wasn’t selling any of the gold. I heard that one of the men in the small town which was near the farm where I grew up had offered her $50 for it. That was not a rip-off price in 1960. She said that when she was short on cash that she had taken one of her gold dollars to the bank to see what they would pay. They gave her $1. I'll bet that teller didn't let that one stay in the till! I never knew what happened to it. So I have this one. This one is graded AU-58.
Hello John. Beautiful coins and a wonderful story. That is so awesome you have the complete set and all but one of the varieties. That's incredible. I am sure they are beautiful. They are becoming harder to find in mint state. Thanks for posting.
Most of them are not Mint State. Some grade as low as VF using yesterday’s standards. Today they are EF-45.
