Many people talk about collections that consist of “a box of 20.” It stems from the fact that the standard NGC and PCGS boxes have room for 20 slabs. A collection that small would be much too confining for me, but I have been thinking about virtual boxes of two. Those boxes consist of two coins that something to do with one another which I find interesting. I could make this a series of postings, but let’s see how popular this first one is. In 1833 the Philadelphia Mint moved from its antiquated, inadequate location where it had opened in 1792, to a much larger facility which was located in what is now in the center of the city. In 1836, plans were initiated to re-introduce the silver dollar. Oddly enough the United States Government had not issued dollars to the general public in any form since 1804. The mint had produced a small number of dollars dated 1804 for diplomatic purposes in 1834, but those pieces had nothing to do with serving commercial needs. Designer Christian Gobrecht got the assignment to design the new silver dollars. Using some sketches by outside artists, Gobrecht created the designs for the dollars that now bear his name. The obverse featured a seated Liberty and the date. The reverse featured a magnificent flying eagle surrounded by 26 stars, one of each state. Those devices were surrounded by “United States of America” and the denomination, “One Dollar.” The 1836 mintage was 1,000 pieces. Additional coins were struck in 1837, and for years after that, “restrikes” were made to fill collector demand. In addition to the silver dollar, treasury secretary, Levi Woodbury asked Gobrecht to prepare a set of dies for a gold dollar. The idea had probably been planted by Bechtler gold dollars that Christopher Bechtler had introduced earlier in the decade. The Bechtler Mint was a private operation that made gold coins from the native gold that was mined in the area. Mint Director Robert Maskell Patterson was strongly opposed to the idea of a gold dollar. He felt that small gold coins like that were an embarrassment to the countries that issued them, because it made those nations look second rate. Gobrecht went through with the project, and here is an example of the resulting coin. It is fairly obvious that Gobrecht borrowed some ideas from the Mexican coinage of the period. In addition to the silver dollar, treasury secretary, Levi Woodbury asked Gobrecht to prepare a set of dies for a gold dollar. The idea had probably been planted by Bechtler gold dollars that Christopher Bechtler had introduced earlier in the decade. The Bechtler Mint was a private operation that made gold coins from the native gold that was mined in the area. Mint Director Robert Maskell Patterson was strongly opposed to the idea of a gold dollar. He felt that small gold coins like that were an embarrassment to the countries that issued them, because it made those nations look second rate. Gobrecht went through with the project, and here is an example of the resulting coin. It is fairly obvious that Gobrecht borrowed some ideas from the Mexican coinage of the period. To no one’s surprise the silver dollar won the day and was issued in much larger quantities starting in 1840. Oddly enough Gobrecht’s beautiful flying eagle design was not used and an eagle that looked very much like the birds that had appeared on our nation’s coinage since 1807 was used instead. So there you have it. My first “box of 2.” These coins are admittedly expensive, but I have other pairs that much more affordable.
Love both of those pieces. Do you own them? Edit: looking up prices, it looks like you could get into this set for a cool $40-50k for grades in the low ms range
Yes, I own them. The Gobrecht Dollar is the original 1836 coin turn piece. It is graded PCGS PR-62 CAC. The 1836 gold dollar is a PCGS PR-64. This is the most common gold pattern. Like the Gobrecht Dollar, restrikes of it were made for years after 1836. The difference is, it's impossible to tell the original strikes from the restrikes, which is okay with me. I once owned this Gobrect Dollar which is a restrike probably from the mid 1850s. it was housed in an NGC PR-60 holder when I sold it. I bought it raw years before that.
The reason Gobrecht's flying eagle was scrapped on the dollar coin was probably due to the desire to have the coinage uniform in appearance for each metal. This was policy in most of the countries of the world and we pretty much followed those guidelines until the early 20th century. While the dollar coin was still under debate the seated liberty had been adopted for the smaller coins but with the spread winged eagle on the reverse (basically just a modification of the same design from the Capped bust coinage). So when the dollar coin was approved for 1840 they changed the reverse from the flying eagle to the spread wing eagle already in use on the quarter and half. (The use of the eagle on the half dime and dime had been ended by the coinage act of 1837.)
