1901-S Liberty gold question. Looking for an education

Justacommeman

I see tons of 1901-s gem half eagles and eagles at shows. However, I've never seen a gem 1901-S double eagle. I think there are literally two of them. Why is this? There were 1.5 million plus minted.

I know in case of the 1901-S eagle that there were tons sent to Europe for settlement. Those survived the trip to and fro across the Atlantic and seem to have held up just fine.

mark

crazyhounddog

According to my book the 1901-s and the 1900-s are the toughest of the series to find in 62 or better of the type 3's . The reason? It doesn't even say. BUT! It does go on to say that you'll have a better chance of finding a nice issue in South America. It doesn't say why LOL.... Some book eh?

This book, don't buy it. It's old from 2000 AD

crazyhounddog

If I had a lot a money I'm sure I would have some good o collection of these double eagles. I love the reverse more than the Saints. There I said it.

Justacommeman

@crazyhounddog said:
If I had a lot a money I'm sure I would have some good o collection of these double eagles. I love the reverse more than the Saints. There I said it.

How much have you had to drink tonight? Fess up

You know there are no buffaloes on either coin, right?

mark

Justacommeman

I'm staying up all night until I get an answer or until Roger tells me we're to go look it up
It some book he might of wrote

mark

ricko

I fell asleep Mark... but now awake... I will take the watch from here.... Cheers, RickO

kaz

In Bowers' Red Book guide, he notes that the coin is "less available" than the mintage suggests, and at the time the book was published (2004), he only listed 6 in MS65 and 115 in MS64. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to have any other explanation for the scarcity.

Justacommeman

I can't keep my eyes open any longer

mark

logger7

I have one that may better after "restoration". http://i.imgur.com/TGfcgO3.jpg

roadrunner

I can't specifically answer the question to the 1901-s. But, I'm pretty sure it's directly related to the entire S mint, type 3 run from 1877-s to 1907-s. Some of these dates barely survived in MS63/64, let alone MS65 or better. This became apparent to me in 1978-1979 when I was doing gold coin rarity surveys as the price of gold escalated from $300 and higher. What better way to take advantage of that than an under-rated $20 Lib at not too far from melt pricing? Despite over a 1 MILL mintage on some of the 1877 S to 1890 S mints, they almost never showed up in choice 63, let alone even MS61. I never was able to find a single one at that time. Dates like 77-s, 78-s, 79-s, 80-s, 81-s, 82-s, 85-s, 87-s were at the top of my list. Anything sent to me back then always turned out to be beat up sliders. I can only imagine how tough a gem would have been. NERCG around that time had a small hoard of 1883-s and 1884-s $20's in choice unc and called them rarities....they brought $thousands each and would probably only grade 63/64 today. And those were the most available dates of the 1877 s to 1887-s run. It was interesting 1-2 years ago to see a hoard of all these scarce dates hit the market and rewrite their rarity. Nice 1888-s, 1889-s and 1890-s examples showed up by the dozens. But being an early hoard....no 1901-S's.

In any case even the dates from 1893-s to 1907-s don't exactly show up often in gem either. And the majority of them won't CAC any ways. I don't know precisely why the 1901-s is a sleeper of the later dates. But when I did my surveys almost 30 years ago, the 1901-s stuck out along with the 1902-s as pretty much the toughest S mints in choice/gem condition of the 1892-s to 1907-s run (05-s and 06-s weren't far behind). It could have been related to what was going on in San Fransisco in 1901-1906. Nice S mint silver coins of that time were somewhat scarce, especially out east. If dumb luck didn't allow a few rolls or small bag of various date/mints to survive, odds were not all that good that you'd ever find one. Only the 1904-s shows up with any frequency....and even that date in gem is rarer than a gem 1857-s $20....though the eye appeal difference between those 2 is huge.

Whatever the reason is for the 1901-s scarcity....it's likely the same reason for the other dozen or more top S mints of the 1877 to 1907 period. Forget the mintages. It's only survival rates that count. The same lesson I learned when surveying the S mint seated quarters, dimes, and halves in the mid-1970's. Looking back on my "feeble" survey data from the 1970's, I'm surprised how close I called most of these S mints on just using Coin World, price lists, and auction catalog appearances. It only took me a couple of days to weeks of going back through my archive of 5 years of price/appearance data. No way to account for deeply buried hoards back then. The gold bullion ownership ban was only lifted in Dec 1974. I don't know if it played a role but the first official US gold standard began in 1900....and only lasted until the start of WW1.

No one seemed to have saved S mint $20's in Gem prior to 1904 except John Clapp (later bought by Eliasberg). And Clapp bought them in the 1890's. I don't think he was buying them from the mint in the 1880's. Except for a limited number of dates, $20 Libs in MS64 and higher are pretty scarce coins. Only 8 of the 1901-s $20's are stickered with 0 at MS65. And this wasn't just a $20 S mint phenomena. The S mint $5 and $10 Libs in the 1870's to early 1900's are full of scarce and rare dates in MS64 and higher. I ran across the rarity of 1894-s $5 Lib very early on....just couldn't find one until the Eliasberg gem showed up in 1982 (fetching around $20,000 and grading NGC MS69 by 1989...bought by either Joe Flynn or Don Kagin, I forget which). S mints have always been cool and often under-rated due to some of them having higher mintages. And Coin World Trends and Red Book pricing was of little help when nearly everything back then was listed as a "common" date unless it was rare in F-XF.

Boosibri

@logger7 said:
I have a beauty for you that has been in conservation for the last few months, old holder no less. http://i.imgur.com/TGfcgO3.jpg

Why is it in conservation

logger7

I re-phrased. The Bowers book was good on double eagles. I will look for the 2000 book on type IIIs.

TONEDDOLLARS

Mark, are you going to FUN? Is this finally the year we meet?

Justacommeman

Hiya Jack

The problem remains that I'm off the week between Christmas and New Years and in my business it's one of the only good weeks to take off. When I was single I was able to sneak down for a day ONCE without anyone noticing.

One day my friend

mark

TONEDDOLLARS

Well then, good health and until we finally meet happy hunting

CaptHenway

Certain coins were saved in quantity in nice condition by chance in a world where one bag was the same as the other. Look at 1881-S and 1882-S dollars vs. 1883-S and 1884-S dollars.

Kove

@Boosibri said:

@logger7 said:
I have a beauty for you that has been in conservation for the last few months, old holder no less. http://i.imgur.com/TGfcgO3.jpg

Why is it in conservation

The uneven bluish white haze visible sitting on the surface of the fields, likely placed there intentionally immediately prior to submission in the 1990s?

logger7

It fooled me. If it is putty it hasn't turned as badly as on some coins. It actually looked high end to me for a while.

I misread earlier post as "why is it in (this) conversation".

Elcontador

Mark, we have a circulated one as a family heirloom. In 1933, when the order went out for people to turn in their gold coins, my grandmother didn't trust the government, and put $75 face of gold coins in the safe deposit box. The 01 S Double Eagle is a VF, the 04 S Double Eagle is a low grade Unc.

Justacommeman

Thanks for all the responses. It just blows my mind that with over 1.5 million minted there are but two graded 65 or higher at PCGS. Even more puzzling is that there are SO many 01-s half eagles and Eagles in 65 or better

mark