I noticed today there is a 1930-S double eagle for auction on Great Collections in AG-03. Who would have had a $20 pocket piece long enough to wear it to AG-03? Surely this did not come from circulation in the period under 3 years before they were outlawed. Or did these continue to circulate elsewhere in the world? A nice bargain to fill that empty hole in your folder! https://www.greatcollections.com/Coin/1535615/
My first thought, but back then $20 was a lot of money. It would have had to have been a very rich person. A lot of working people didn't make that much a month. And it would have taken a long time, I would think, even for soft gold to wear down that much.
Paging @GDJMSP with his AGE pocket piece. No guarantees that any of this wear happened during the Depression -- it could be a problem piece that someone decided to turn into a lowball trophy. Although it would take more, ahem, courage than I have to do that with a super-key date...
That's pretty cool. I just don't have the $41,000 this week though, so I won't bid. I also initially thought pocket piece - might not have happened in the 30s - gold was less than $500/oz. in the 50s and 60s. But as pointed out, it's a key date, and that would have been known by the 50s. So I don't know.
It was up for sale last August and got no bidders at $60,000. Clearly, at a lower price, it has some value. I'm guessing...but if that was a pocket piece...given gold's softer nature....I would say that looks like 12-18 months of pocket wear.
Being a little more detailed now, it probably was not just kept in a pocket but rubbed like a worry stone. It may have been placed in a rock tumbler or any number of things to get it to show wear. Use your imagination and you’d be surprised what could have been done it may have been done. If only coins could talk to us.
It's a million-dollar coin in MS condition, probably even AU. From Heritage: "The 1930-S is the second-rarest collectible issue in the Saint-Gaudens series after the 1927-D.....While the 1924-S, 1926-D, and 1926-S were formally thought to be the rarest issues in the series, their rarity estimates were altered by repatriations from foreign holdings over the years. The 1930-S now sits near the top of the list, followed closely by the other later dates, including the 1929, 1931, 1931-D, and 1932. The San Francisco facility coined a meager production of 74,000 double eagles in 1930, representing the final twenty dollar issue from the branch mint. The mintage is one of the lowest in the series, though it fails to accurately represent the number of examples distributed to the public. Moreover, the 1930-S is many times rarer than other issues with a comparable mintage. The 1930-S coins were intended to serve as currency reserves rather than circulation issues, as the Great Depression had vastly reduced the economy's capacity to absorb virtually any significant quantity of large denomination gold coinage. Research by Roger W. Burdette indicates only 727 examples of this issue were ever available for collector use, and many of those coins were not distributed. Probably no more than 75 examples are extant today, almost all in Uncirculated grades. Breen wrote in his 1988 Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins that "most came from European bank vaults around 1960." While there is evidence that a small quantity were repatriated from international vaults, Breen's assertion has been widely refuted based on the condition of surviving representatives. In fact, Garrett and Guth (2006) explain: "Those that did survive were likely held by American coin collectors or dealers, and it is almost certain that none were shipped overseas from this Western mint." Most examples are well-preserved in MS63 to MS65 condition with minimal bagmarks."
Well, there are those of us out there, maybe not a lot of us, there are some. With respect, you couldn't be more wrong if you tried. An example for you, and I'm pretty sure you're gonna remember seeing this before. And yeah, gold is softer than other coinage metals. But gold is far, far harder than most people think, and it wears very well. The AGE I just posted above was carried in my pocket, with 4 quarters, (and whatever other change I happened to accumulate over the course of the day), and a pocket knife - every single day for over 7 years. And it was used as my flipping and pitching coin, pretty much on a daily basis. And it didn't accumulate any where near as much wear as that 1930 coin, not even close ! My guess, it took 20 years, maybe more, for that coin to accumulate that much wear. And that 2002 wasn't the first or only AGE I did that with. There were 3 other AGE's I did that with before I ever got that one. Each and every one accumulated wear at the same rate. I would also add that the AGE pictured above lost only 0.003 of a gram of its weight after all that wear. That's a possibility. But I think it more likely, more probable, that it was carried as a pocket piece, a keepsake, by somebody from that time period who decided to hang on to it precisely because gold coinage had been recalled. And eventually passed on to that person's family.
It would have taken a long time to have gotten down to that grade, even though it's gold. That's a rare date, but it wouldn't interest me at all for much more than melt. I don't understand the "low ball" market at all. Those are coins I avoid.
I have the impression that coin gold, alloyed with copper, is a lot harder than pure gold. But I'm having trouble finding actual numbers/measurements for the hardness of coin gold.
When I say gold is far harder than most people think it is, I'm talking about people's perception of gold - just how soft they "think" it is. For example, ask just about anybody you want why people used to bite gold coins ? The vast majority will answer and say something along the lines of - they were biting it to see if they could leave teeth marks in the coin because gold is soft and you'll see teeth marks if you bite it - teeth marks tell you it's genuine gold. Well that's partly true, they were biting it to see if it was genuine. But they were biting to make sure they could not leave teeth marks - because genuine gold is hard ! And if you bite it, you won't see any teeth marks ! If you think gold is soft, take a small gold bar, a bullion bar, just a couple of grams, and try to bend it. You'll find out it's not as easy to bend as you think it is. Then take a silver bar, same size, and try to bend it. You'll find out there's very little difference between it and the gold bar, very little. I'd even be surprised if you could tell the difference between the two. And you can do the same thing with copper. Yeah, the Mohs numbers, the hardness scale will be different, and gold has lower numbers than most other metals. But in the practical word, the world we live in, when it comes to things like wear on coins, there is very little difference between how copper coins, silver coins, and gold coins wear.
Lead is softer than gold. Since lead was frequently used as the "under metal" for fake gold coins (dense, heavy for its volume), the teeth marks were a form of authentication.
Thanks GD....I don't recall seeing that before but I won't forget the one you posted. Clearly, it takes a while to wear down a "soft" gold coin. Would you expect any big differnce between a 90% gold/10% copper coin like a Saint and a 0.9999 fine 1-ounce modern ? Do you think it's the gold or other metals that might be letting the Saint and your pocket AGE last so long vs. a 0.9999 modern "pure" gold coin ?
It's a sort of unique coin because the next highest grade is in the 50's. It sold a few years ago for about $44,000 so it's about on par with that.
Besides the non-gold content in Saints and AGEs vs. a 0.9999 pure coin....could the striking affect longevity ? Maybe older presses from the 1920's compacted the gold differently vs. a modern press ? I'm stretching, but just trying to cover all the angles. BTW...I take it that any new coin like a Quarter or Nickle would also wear very slowly like your 2002 AGE ? Very instructive pics, GD, thanks for posting it. Really surprising to see how slow abrasion really is.
I can't speak about the modern 99.99% gold, but I can sure speak about the centuries old 98.6% gold coins. And they held up to wear very well indeed, and there are many thousands of examples to look at. Well, abrasion can be a misleading and misunderstood word in this case because it implies a wearing away of the metal. That's why I mentioned the weight of the AGE I pictured above. After enough wear to get the AGE down to VG condition, the coin only lost 0.003 of a gram of its original weight. For all practical purposes that's nothing ! Proving that the metal doesn't/didn't wear away, it merely flattened out and spread out with wear. And it's not just gold that does this, all coins do basically the same thing. Appreciable weight loss only occurs once a coin has reached G or worse condition.
