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Message:: [QUOTE="johnmilton, post: 25780317, member: 101855"]There is a piece that is listed on page 405 of such a coin in the 77th Edition of A Guide Boook of United States Coins. (a.k.a. "The Red Book") The piece was a $25 California gold piece that was made by a Georgia jewler and gunsmith, Templeton Reid. Reid made some pieces from Georgia gold, in 1830, which are all extremely rare today. His California gold pieces are even rarer. Sometime after gold was discovered in California, Reid made sets of dies for $10 and $25 gold pieces which were claimed to be made from California gold. That is possilbe because some Georgia miners did go to California after the discovery, found some gold and returned to Georgia, bringing some gold with them. Much of the gold that was used to make the gold coins issued from the Dalonega Mint in 1853 was from California, not Georgia. But I digress. Reid never went to California. He died in 1851. The only known example of his $25 gold piece was stolen from the United States Mint cabinet on August 16, 1858. It has never been recovered and no photos are known of it. I could also relate a story about a piece of Confederate paper money which no longer exists, but was known to exist in 1861 if that is of any interest.[/QUOTE]