Gold Indian pendant- A question for an elderly widow

Torey

This spring, my grandmother and her best friend drove up to visit my family in the mountains. They are both widows and have been best friends since grade school. I can not express enough how selfless, compassionate, and sweet this woman is. Just an incredible lady and a great friend to my grandmother.
She brought along a velvet case and asked if I would have time to go through her late husband's coins with her to give her an idea of the value.
I was surprised when I opened the case; there was a $10 gold indian, $20 CC Liberty, and a better date Saint Gauden's in the mix. She also had this pendant with a $5 Indian inside. She mentioned that it was done with spun glass, and the pendant is 14k gold.
I can get a close value on the other coins; I am just checking to see if anyone has any info on the pendant. The glass is very well done, the indian is cleaned and/or polished. I assume that there is no premium for the colored spun glass. I don't have the heart to tell her that, as that's the prized piece in her eyes.
She mentioned she never intended to sell them, but that she might need to. I later asked my grandma if she was hurting financially, and found out that she lives in an upstairs apartment and is struggling to climb all of the stairs.
I obviously want to get every dime out of them as possible for her and will add my own cash on top of it.
If anyone has any info above the numismatic value of the coin (if any), I would certainly appreciate it.

Morgan White

Melt including the bezel is around 1k. I doubt you'd find anyone that wants it for more than that.

pcgsregistrycollector

You'd garner a decent amount of attention at greatcollections. They have a dedicated section to exonumia.

jmlanzaf

That piece is actually quite common. I did a Google image search of your photo and found dozens of them with average prices of $1500.

jmlanzaf

jmlanzaf

You can also search "$5 gold indian enamel" on ebay

It may be glass but they seem to be all mixed together on ebay.

Russell12

it's numismatic value is melt only, because it it considered damaged. However, it's worth is in gold and curiosity value.

seatedlib3991

All I know is that you must never, ever, ever let my wife see that. James

CaptHenway

saw a few of those come into the coin shop over the years. The makers did something to the coins first (Blasted with small glass beads perhaps) the completely ruined them. Could never resell them so always ended up melting them.

MrEureka

@Torey said:
This spring, my grandmother and her best friend drove up to visit my family in the mountains. They are both widows and have been best friends since grade school. I can not express enough how selfless, compassionate, and sweet this woman is. Just an incredible lady and a great friend to my grandmother.
She brought along a velvet case and asked if I would have time to go through her late husband's coins with her to give her an idea of the value.
I was surprised when I opened the case; there was a $10 gold indian, $20 CC Liberty, and a better date Saint Gauden's in the mix. She also had this pendant with a $5 Indian inside. She mentioned that it was done with spun glass, and the pendant is 14k gold.
I can get a close value on the other coins; I am just checking to see if anyone has any info on the pendant. The glass is very well done, the indian is cleaned and/or polished. I assume that there is no premium for the colored spun glass. I don't have the heart to tell her that, as that's the prized piece in her eyes.
She mentioned she never intended to sell them, but that she might need to. I later asked my grandma if she was hurting financially, and found out that she lives in an upstairs apartment and is struggling to climb all of the stairs.
I obviously want to get every dime out of them as possible for her and will add my own cash on top of it.
If anyone has any info above the numismatic value of the coin (if any), I would certainly appreciate it.

FWIW, I think there’s no reason to explain that it’s nothing special. Why not just say that it’s really cool and that you should be able to get about $1000 for it? To most people, that would sound like great news!

MsMorrisine

surprised the refiners would take them

perhaps you can look for sold prices on ebay

Torey

@jmlanzaf
You would think by now my mind would go to reverse image search first.
Thank you everyone for the info!

jmlanzaf

@Torey said:
@jmlanzaf
You would think by now my mind would go to reverse image search first.
Thank you everyone for the info!

Best thing that's ever happened to collectibles research.

Sapyx

The kind of "glass" used to paint coloured patterns onto coins is normally called "vitreous enamel" or just "enamel".

Enamelled coins are certainly desirable collectables, though not normally by regular coin collectors, who tend to see them as merely "damaged coins". But the art of making vitreous enamel required considerable skill, and some aspects of the craft are now "lost technology" since enamel became obsolete with the invention of epoxy resins, which can do much the same job but much quicker and cheaper, so we don't really know exactly how it used to be done. For example, to make an enamelled coin, the enamel is painted on as a dry powder, then the coin needs to be fired in a kiln until the glass melts. So how then did they manage to enamel both sides of a coin - shouldn't the enamel on the "upside-down" side of a coin have melted and fallen off? And how did they get multiple different colours staying as separate distinct bands when, if the glass melted, the colours should have all run together? Apparently, it was done by having the different colours each having slightly different melting temperatures, so each colour had its own separate baking run in the kiln. But the delicate fine control of temperature for a kiln operating at some 750 deg C (1400 deg F) shouldn't have been possible with the technology they had back in the early 1900s.

All of which points to the fact that reproducing such effects even with modern technology is not cheap or easy (unless you use epoxy resin), so surviving enamelled objects are thus "limited edition" and consequently rare and valuable. "How valuable" does depend a great deal - even more so than for regular coins - on the Eye of the Beholder, and whether the coloured patters are considered beautiful or not. Having the enamel still fully intact is also always a bonus, as enamelled surfaces were always prone to chipping.

rte592

The 1912 gold Indian weights
Mass / Weight: 8.36 grams, ruffly $888 gold melt.
You could weight the complete pendant...
Subtract the 8.36 grams and the rest, figure out the value of 14k gold weight.
Then figure 90% of total value as a melt baseline and price accordingly.

PerryHall

@Sapyx---Great information. As far as the issue of firing the coin to melt the enamel on one side while keeping the enamel intact on the opposite side, aren't these coins typically only enameled on one side? As a jewelry coin, it wouldn't really be necessary to enamel both sides of the coin since when it's in a bezel and then hung from a neckless, you would only see the one side of the coin that's been enameled.

JBK

@Sapyx said:
The kind of "glass" used to paint coloured patterns onto coins is normally called "vitreous enamel" or just "enamel".

Enamelled coins are certainly desirable collectables, though not normally by regular coin collectors, who tend to see them as merely "damaged coins". But the art of making vitreous enamel required considerable skill, and some aspects of the craft are now "lost technology" since enamel became obsolete with the invention of epoxy resins, which can do much the same job but much quicker and cheaper, so we don't really know exactly how it used to be done. For example, to make an enamelled coin, the enamel is painted on as a dry powder, then the coin needs to be fired in a kiln until the glass melts. So how then did they manage to enamel both sides of a coin - shouldn't the enamel on the "upside-down" side of a coin have melted and fallen off? And how did they get multiple different colours staying as separate distinct bands when, if the glass melted, the colours should have all run together? Apparently, it was done by having the different colours each having slightly different melting temperatures, so each colour had its own separate baking run in the kiln. But the delicate fine control of temperature for a kiln operating at some 750 deg C (1400 deg F) shouldn't have been possible with the technology they had back in the early 1900s.

All of which points to the fact that reproducing such effects even with modern technology is not cheap or easy (unless you use epoxy resin), so surviving enamelled objects are thus "limited edition" and consequently rare and valuable. "How valuable" does depend a great deal - even more so than for regular coins - on the Eye of the Beholder, and whether the coloured patters are considered beautiful or not. Having the enamel still fully intact is also always a bonus, as enamelled surfaces were always prone to chipping.

I don't know how many people still do enameling, but it's not exactly a lost art - my grandmother was doing it a few decades ago.

I suppose it takes practice and skill, but the glass does not necessarily melt into a puddle. The colors can be kept separate and there were always two enameled sides on the things she made (although the finer detailed designs were usually only on one side).

PerryHall

@JBK said:

@Sapyx said:
The kind of "glass" used to paint coloured patterns onto coins is normally called "vitreous enamel" or just "enamel".

Enamelled coins are certainly desirable collectables, though not normally by regular coin collectors, who tend to see them as merely "damaged coins". But the art of making vitreous enamel required considerable skill, and some aspects of the craft are now "lost technology" since enamel became obsolete with the invention of epoxy resins, which can do much the same job but much quicker and cheaper, so we don't really know exactly how it used to be done. For example, to make an enamelled coin, the enamel is painted on as a dry powder, then the coin needs to be fired in a kiln until the glass melts. So how then did they manage to enamel both sides of a coin - shouldn't the enamel on the "upside-down" side of a coin have melted and fallen off? And how did they get multiple different colours staying as separate distinct bands when, if the glass melted, the colours should have all run together? Apparently, it was done by having the different colours each having slightly different melting temperatures, so each colour had its own separate baking run in the kiln. But the delicate fine control of temperature for a kiln operating at some 750 deg C (1400 deg F) shouldn't have been possible with the technology they had back in the early 1900s.

All of which points to the fact that reproducing such effects even with modern technology is not cheap or easy (unless you use epoxy resin), so surviving enamelled objects are thus "limited edition" and consequently rare and valuable. "How valuable" does depend a great deal - even more so than for regular coins - on the Eye of the Beholder, and whether the coloured patters are considered beautiful or not. Having the enamel still fully intact is also always a bonus, as enamelled surfaces were always prone to chipping.

I don't know how many people still do enameling, but it's not exactly a lost art - my grandmother was doing it a few decades ago.

I suppose it takes practice and skill, but the glass does not necessarily melt into a puddle. The colors can be kept separate and there were always two enameled sides on the things she made (although the finer detailed designs were usually only on one side).

How did she keep the enamel from melting off the first side of the coin when she is firing the enamel on the second side of the coin? The epoxy painted colorized coins are frequently referred to as being enameled.