Bass-Dannreuther 5-E variety, considered to be Rarity-2.

The first year of this popular six-year series, designed by expert engraver John M. Reich.

This coin itself is superb, with its beautiful, untouched, original ‘skin’ intact and wonderful mellowed golden orange color.

We can vouch for this coin’s whereabouts for the last 70 years or so: It has been housed in a brown kraft 2×2 envelope since Karl Stecher Sr. purchased it from the Guttag Bros. of New York in the 1930s.

The Karl Stecher Sr. Story

All we know about Karl Stecher Sr. (1891-1965) comes to us from the Heritage Auction catalog #432 where his collection was sold. We quote from the front of that catalog as follows:

"All of the coins in Mr. Stecher’s collection were acquired between 1933 and 1941, and remained in their original envelopes until some were submitted to PCGS in October, 2006.

Parts of his collection were purchased from major coin dealers (of that time). Additionally, many of the gold coins offered in this auction were obtained through marvelous circumstances that existed for Mr. Stecher while he was a law professor at Emory University in Macon, Georgia from 1928-1934. President Franklin Roosevelt’s Emergency Banking Relief Act (Order #6102, March 9, 1933) ordered the public to turn in their ‘non-collector’ gold coins; naturally many rare coins suffered a similar fate. Mrs. Stecher’s uncle, Thomas W. Smith, had enjoyed a lifelong banking career starting in 1909 that culminated in responsibility for the Atlanta ‘gold room’ of the Citizen’s and Southern Bank. All of the gold that flowed through the bank’s branches in response to President Roosevelt’s decree passed through Mr. Smith’s office, and Mr. Stecher was allowed to select numismatic items from the river of gold, paying face value for numismatic coins he selected."

At CRO, we scour the market for "untouched" and "unconserved" rare US coins exactly like these, and so this auction was especially interesting to us. We were able to select our favorite pieces from a plethora of gold coins that sat untouched since the 1930’s, and now you can be the beneficiary of this fortunate circumstance.

SOLD

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