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Message:: [QUOTE="WingedLiberty, post: 1172910, member: 26030"]I just bought this 1851 One Dollar Gold coin -- a type coin I have wanted for my collection for about 20 years!   The Type 1 Liberty Head One Dollar Gold coin is the smallest diameter coin  ever struck for circulation in the U.S. -- checking in at 13.0 mm. The photo below shows the actual size of this tiny coin, alongside a Rosevelt dime that has a diameter of 17.9 mm. [ATTACH]122188.vB[/ATTACH]Could you imagine a pocketful of these small gold coins?  Trying to pick them out of your pocket lint?  Or the sound they might make if a bunch of them fell on the floor? I was trying to find a good example of a One Dollar Gold coin from a batch of raw and third party graded coins at my local dealer this afternoon.  I stumbled across this raw Liberty Head Gold Dollar that had a ton of luster and looked very clean, tagged at $400.  The only other Dollar Gold coin I liked in the batch was an NGC MS63 for $1200, but that was too much money for a coin that is actually hard to see!   And honestly the little raw coin I ended up buying looked just as nice to my eye.  I think it's possible the raw coin I purchased might only grade AU even though the coin appears to have a lot of luster;  unless some of the lack of detail is from a weak stike (note the weak 1 in 1851).   However I think it's pretty safe to say this is probably at least AU55 to 58 -- although I am amazed at how clean the fields are. It's hard to find a mark on this coin. [ATTACH]122059.vB[/ATTACH]The dealer initially wanted $400 for this coin as he thought it was at least MS60, but I was able to negotiate it down to $275, when I convinced him that it might only grade AU. (It helps that I do a lot of business there.) The price break between AU coins and higher grade MS coins is pretty steep with this series -- with AU's going in the $200's, MS60 around $350, MS61-62 in the $600's, MS63 in the $1200's.  So for those interested in buying one of these, look for a nice lusterous AU coin (it's a much better deal). This is a very short-run series, as the Type 1 (Liberty Head) Gold Dollar variety was minted for only 6 years from 1849 to 1854.  The Type 2 and Type 3 (Indian Princess) Gold Dollar designs that followed were the exact same weight, but made thinner with an increased diameter of 2 mm for a total new diameter of 15mm (a 15% increase in diameter over Type 1).  Minting of these tiny One Dollar denomination Gold coins was discontinued in 1889 after only 40 years of production -- and twelve years after the popular Morgan Silver Dollar began production. These One Dollar Gold coins contain 1.5 grams (or 1/20th of an  ounce) of gold.  So the gold melt value (at today's spot) of one of these  Dollar Gold coins is about $77.  It's interesting to note that the melt  value of a Morgan Silver Dollar (the other $1 coin circulating in  the late 1880's) is around $30.  In other words, today's melt value of an 1889 One Dollar Gold coin is 2.7 times more than today's melt value of an 1889 One Dollar Silver coin.  [ATTACH]122189.vB[/ATTACH] So based on the Gold and Silver content on the two $1 coins way back in 1889 -- a dollars worth of Silver was 0.77 ounces (the Morgan Dollar content), while a dollars worth of Gold was 0.05 ounces (the Gold Dollar content).  So in 1889, the Gold/Silver ratio was roughly 15 to 1.   Fast forward to 2011, and the Gold/Silver ratio is closer to 39 to 1.  That is, over the past 100 years, Gold has increased in value about 2.7x more than Silver. I wonder if this might imply that Silver is undervalued at  today's prices? In any case, I thought I would share my little adventure today![/QUOTE]

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