Rarcoa 1964 $20 Saint
darktone
Posts: 8,437 ✭✭✭
6
darktone
Posts: 8,437 ✭✭✭
darktone
Posts: 8,437 ✭✭✭
Comments
Very clean looking coin. Love the coin, holder and invoice!
Rarcoa was founded by Ben Dreiske and David Shapiro in 1962. It is still in business and here is the history of the firm.
Looks like a 66+
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Very nice SG. Even nicer price!
Very nice coin!
Sunshine Rare Coins
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Even gets better. My Mom and Dad bought this when my Dad graduated medical school. They remember this day like it was yesterday. It was a huge expense at that time. My Dad gave me the coin quite a few years ago and recently found this envelope with the receipt. I was born a few months later and used to go to Rarcoa with my Dad when I was a kid.
Great history on this coin and collecting with your Dad @darktone . Thanks for sharing.
I remember seeing common $20's advertised in Coin World, in the mid-1960's, for $48. I was a kid and did not have enough money to buy one.
Great story and a wonderful coin
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Very cool!
Does the Rarcoa address on the envelope ring a bell with anyone else here or am I having a senior moment?
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Beautiful Saint. That location is where Harlan Berk is now
looks like a solid ms66
That is correct... It is where Harlan Berk is located.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
talk about a piece of coin history....most impressive,thanks for sharing
Very cool
Can't help but note the 4% sales tax. I wonder what it is in Chicago these days? 10% ? Speaks volumes.
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson
My digital cameo album 1950-64 Cameos - take a look!
That coin should never be sold,only pass down to family members. Nice to get a look at it,Thanks..
If anybody has a copy of Dave Bowers' coin hoard book, read the "Chicago Hoard" story that I contributed. It involved over a thousand double eagles put aside circa 1932 or 1933, that were sewn into felt pads and hidden for decades.
I helped buy that hoard in 1986 when I was working for Walter Perschke, so this coin did not come out of that lot. However, the group did include a number of gorgeous 1923-D coins with toning similar to this coin, and the group that we bought was the property of only one of the heirs to the original hoard of $20's. There were other groups, and I would bet that this coin came from a different heir that sold their coins in the early 1960's.
TD
By the way, I later went to work for Harlan Berk when he took over the 31 N. Clark St. location from Rarcoa in 1989.
Great info CaptHenway! Thanks!
You are quite welcome. If you are going to keep the coin as a family heirloom, which I hope you do but that is your business, you might want to try to get a copy of the hoard book to go with it.
Thanks, I own that book. I'll have to look it up and show my Dad! Yes it will remain in the family. And no it will never be slabbed. I actually have another Saint from a family member with maybe even a more interesting story.
Do tell.......
Pretty darn cool, don't see that everyday, especially w/ the paperwork still around!
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Wow nice saint, mint fresh. Cool piece of history for sure.
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Great double Eagle!
^^^^^^
This!
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Tom, I will look for a picture of the other coin and I'll tell the story.
Could not find a picture of it but here's the story-
My uncle was in a bank in the 60's and he was in a booth checking out his treasures in his safety deposit box when someone else dropped their box and $20 coins were rolling around. My uncle being the guy he was put his foot over one that rolled into his booth and concealed it until the commotion died down and put it in his box. He told my Dad this story right after it happened and my Dad told me the story several times over the years. When my uncle died my Dad made sure I got the coin. I still got it and it's an 11-D Saint. I Will never sell it. This was in a Chicago bank that he got it.
Lol! Well, finders keepers I guess. My family gold coin story would be the opposite, where a $5 gold coin my grandma had put aside for 12-year old me was stolen by the woman who had recently quit cleaning for her. As to the 23-d saint, it's a beauty, right down to the circa '60s "cot-well" coin holder.
Almost looks like it was specially selected for its high quality and a strong premium paid for it. That was a lot of money for a regular saint back then. I think regular conditioned BU's were in the $38-$45 range back then. In 1964 most Americans probably didn't realize that you could legally own pre-1933 US Gold coins. Pittman, Eliasberg and many others knew that in the 1940's and 1950's. Neat to see a piece picked up in the early 1960's with documentation.
Getting it slabbed would be a good way to "protect" it and allow easily handing for years to come....along with documenting its value. Raw it might only trade for $1300-$1600. Slabbed and stickered you could be easily looking at $1800-$3800. No real downside for only $50 or so in total fees. If anything really benefits from slabbing and stickering, it's MS65 and higher gem gold $20's.
Count me in the keep it raw camp. Family memories worth more than the plastic "protection". Its still nice to hold a naked coin, especially one this nice.
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This will be handed down to my Daughter some day along with the receipt and a not from my parents describing their day and what it meant to them. The holder it's been in since they got it seems to have done a super job of protecting it for over 1/2 a century.
Beautiful saint! with a great story behind it.
That current holder certainly protects the coin. It doesn't however protect or help determine the grade, value, or even if it hasn't been cleaned, mishandled, or played with before or after your parents got it. The coin could be anything from a 63 to 67. Who knows. I'd agree with Joe Ebb up around the 66 level. Stunning. With a better photo for the forum I think we could nail the grade down. Big gold is fairly easy to grade with good photos....just like Morgans.
Having a baseline TPG-approved grade would be very helpful imo. If you want, after grading, crack it out and put it back in the capital holder, after first photographing it in detail in the holder/True View, etc. Once you're gone from the scene, someone in the family is going to sell it at some point. And the odds are fairly good they won't get near what they should for it. That would bother me for anything I might leave behind for my family, especially knowing they are going to get 30c to 50c on the dollar for what I leave them. At a minimum, have a respected gold grading expert give the potential grade(s) the coin should get...though I suspect you already have an idea on what it is.
I won't grade it. It will stay with the family.
Anyways, it's in a cot-well, not a capital plastics holder.
Great story and post. 23-D's come nice of course, but it doesn't matter. The story makes the coin and the quality of the coin just adds to it.
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Family heirloom indeed!
You can also grade it- and keep it in the family.
A beautiful gold Saint... and a family heirloom as well....so neat to have the documentation too.... Cheers, RickO
Why grade it? What would it gain me except for the chance for it to be lost in the mail- anyone remember the Newport Beach postal thefts of coins going to PCGS about 16 years ago? I do as I lost many coins in that one including a family heirloom. It means more to me in the holder that my Dad and Mom first laid eyes on it and I don't want to cheapen that by putting a dollar value on it.
It is indeed possible to own a coin that has not been slabbed. It is sad that some people cannot accept this idea.
TD
A woman that worked for me once stole an early gold proof set from her grandmother and sold it for melt to a pawn shop. After she did that, she asked me what it was worth and almost fainted. Aren't drugs wonderful? Her grandmother refused to press charges, but she was arrested on other things.
I can understand not taking the risk of shipping.
One of my best friends sent a large order of MS66 Saints he had just purchased to CAC back around 2014. A few dozen of them. Incredible coins that were very fresh and not been seen since graded a long time ago. Each sticker was probably going to add $1,000+ per coin. He was very optimistic a decent number of them would sticker. The REG mail order was lost on the way to CAC. I don't know what he got in a settlement but he didn't make much if any money on that deal. It happens. And that was the 1st REG shipment they had lost out of many hundreds over 30 yrs.
Interesting. I started there in 1968. The salesman was O. Douglas Mitsven. The coin is most likely from the J.F. Bell inventory that made up the vast majority of the original inventory in. 1962. To give you an idea of how vast it was, there were over 1000 $3 gold pieces, and type three gold dollars were kept banded in groups of 10 gem BU coins to the tune of 's50 to 100 PER DATE! The unattained goal of having all date and mint mark gold in stock was very extensive toward that end. We always tried to keep a Pan Pac set and a Stella in stock at all times, along with several High Relief $20's. Ah the good old days.
Some great info here!
Gorgeous coin! I love the stories, too. Not sure about your uncle. LOL.
Lance.
yeah it was! And who it their right mind would pay $55 for a $20 coin!!! that's crazy.
In 1964 that coin had approx $34 in pure gold. Since bullion was off limits to US citizens, buying pre-1933 classic golds was one of the few ways to own gold other than jewelry. And the markup on jewelry was probably a lot more than 60%. The OPs $20 looks hand picked for condition. I would bet that with the shop providing a BU coin to you, the price might have been more in the $42-$50 range. Still, getting a 41 year old gem gold coin in 1964 for 60% over its melt value seems somewhat reasonable. When that $20 Saint was made in 1923 it did have a $20 gold content.