Best Of

$20 Gold Saint Gaudens High Relief Double Eagle

@Goldbully said:

Amazing rainbow copper coin, virtually spotless. Is she graded?

Thank you. I was lucky to find it.

Complete wheat cent Lincoln set. It was a raw XF45 ish 1909-S VDB.

I bought this 1909-S-VDB in the early 1980s. It had ANACS VF-20 papers. NGC graded it EF-40. I think NGC got it right.

This was the last coin I needed to complete the 1909 to 1940 Lincoln Cent album. I have only owned a 1922 Plain as a dealer, which doesn't count.

My collection has turned over many times since 2012 when I acquired this coin. I've kept this because of its distinctive pumpkin color and it remains a collection favorite!

No “FG” variety (I was too dumb to realize I needed to check a box to have it attributed on the holder). An even more beautifully toned clad example in hand than the TVs convey imho

@rarity7

As a starting point, I would recommend--The Builders of a Great City: San Francisco's Representative Men, the City, Its History and Commerce, etc., Volume 1, p. 166, San Francisco Journal of Commerce, 1891.

Garratt’s statement is paywalled behind a research database, otherwise I would post it here.

I do not mean this in anyway pejoratively, but from reading just the one blog post, I am unsure if you have a full picture of Shultz & Company’s business model. They essentially provided dies for coins issued by most private concerns (and struck some of those coins)--- save for Moffat. They struck some coins of their own, the $5 being known, and a $10 piece being rumored. Schultz himself was more or less a front/moneyman. Garratt was the one who, with Kunis as engraver, ran the physical operations. Garratt and Kuner went their separate ways when Schultz folded, but both remained active in San Fran after. Kuners was said by Garratt to have left the City for “the mountains” for a period after the 1851 fire.

Garratt seemed to have been plagued by fires. The 1870 fire was one of several (1851, 1866) at his different locations, but it was the one finally destroyed his dies and machinery. He did again reopen after, but I did not follow that trail subsequent to 1870.

Thank you for the kind courtesy of offering to credit, but I wrote nothing original, so no credit is due.

Reciprocally, would welcome any cites you might share (apart from the die state analysis—which I lack any real competence to comment on).

Agree exact date it was struck remains speculative. Not sure that is something that could be found, or not, with a deeper dive. Have not drilled down much beyond the surface....

Think the coin is not a "Schultz & Company" issue—(my opinion)---but that observation does not lessen the significance of a one of one (known) Garratt overstrike.