In 1854 , at the height of the California Gold Rush , the San Francisco Mint produced less than 300 especial $ 5 coins . Only three were known to survive into innovative times . Until today , that is . Now there are four .
The proprietor of the quaternary coin , who wishes to remain anon. , really was convince that the coin was fake . Coin dealer thought it was a forgery too , insisting that there ’s no way he could have had a rarified 1854 objet d’art like that . But he institute it to the Numismatic Guaranty Corporation ( NGC ) , a Florida - establish companionship that does third - party authentication of coins , and its expert sustain this rare hoarded wealth was the real deal .
Authenticating the coin was no small task . The company had to do some detecting by comparing it to the three coins that are have intercourse to exist . The expectant job ? One of the known coin was stolen from theDu Pont familyin 1967 and has never been recovered .
Back in October of 1967 , the chemical company heir Willis H. Du Pont and his family were link up in their Coconut Grove , Florida mansion while block out gunmen pillage the place . The stealer made off with over 7,000 rare coins , some of which have been found in odd placesover the years . But Du Pont ’s incredibly rarified $ 5 piece from 1854 , known as a Liberty Head Half Eagle in collect rotary , is still missing .
“ We wanted to make certain that this was n’t that coin , so we were capable to incur image from when it was antecedently auctioned in 1962 , ” Richard Montgomery , president of NGC , told Gizmodo over the earpiece .
Once NGC set it was n’t the Du Pont coin , they receive high - resoluteness images from the Smithsonian , where one of the coin is held , as well as from thePogue Family , secret gatherer who own millions of dollars in coins .
“ We look for vulgar things that you ’ll see between the coins , ” Montgomery told Gizmodo . “ You ’ll see the four in the digit is slightly attenuated or not as gamey in alleviation as the regular part of the four . We noticed that was incisively the same as the Smithsonian piece of music . ”
Subtleties like that — along with what Montgomery calls “ proprietary ” methods to inspect the coin — helped them verify that this slice was the tangible McCoy .
But where did the coin come from ? Was it found a garage sale ? In somebody ’s attic somewhere ? Was it strike in a time capsule ? NGC is n’t letting us in on that secret . The company will only say that the owner lives in New England and refers to the possessor as a “ he . ”
And what about the exact value of the coin ? Montgomery says that ’s not their problem since they do n’t allot in the sales agreement of coin and only allow for authentication and quality assessments . All they ’ll say is that it ’s worth “ one thousand thousand . ”
“ It ’s always incredible to find something that ’s long been opine not to exist , ” said Montgomery . “ It really is like [ NGC Chairman ] Mark Salzberg describes it — like finding a Picasso at a service department sale . You do this long enough that you think a rarity wo n’t pop up and then there it is . ”
San Francisco
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