So one of the coin shops I go to has a really nice dealer who likes to share coin stories about the things that he's collected and gained over the years. He told me about some old bills he had and busted out the Grey sheet and in even low grades they were fetching like $125k each. So after shooting the breeze with him I told him I wanted a nice common date double eagle when he came across one, he said how about a $4 Gold Stella. I told him I'd never heard of one of those and he just smiled and said oh okay I'll let you know if I come across a double eagle. A few weeks passed by and I called him to see if he had any new stuff in, which was just a first year Canada gold coin graded by NCG(wife said no..), so I asked him if he'd bring in that $4 Gold Stella in for me to look at the next time I came up(2 hour round trip) He started laughing and said that coin doesn't leave the deposit box. I just said oh okay it must be a pretty expensive coin and told him I'd talk to him later(not before he asks me if I want to buy a coin shop; he's ready to retire to AZ he's told me) Here I am today flipping through my Red Book when I actually see the $4 Gold Stella.... now I understand. I don't know what year or variety it is but looking at just the 1879, it's expensive!! Amazing a small coin shop in the middle of nowhere came across a coin with less than 500 coins produced. Although I can never afford something like that, it'd be nice to just be able to see a coin that rare. Has anyone in this forum ever had the chance to view/hold a $4 gold coin? I guess it still amazes me how little I know about all of the US coins that are out there that I've never seen or heard about before.
Take the trip to the ANA in August at Chicago this year (2014) you'll see one and many more ultra rarities. And yes I've held one.
The '79 Stella is the most common, the others have mintages of 15, 15, and 25. And expensive isn't quite the word for it as they start, or used to, around $70,000 and today some go for over a million. That said, they are far from being the most rare. There are quite a few coins where there is only 1 known example.
Love em!! Never seen one in person tho got a friend who's owned 3 1794 flowing hair dollars years ago which is my holy grail
