Breen 6194, the scarcer repunched date variety. Described in the Complete Encyclopedia of US and Colonial Coins as "Double date. Rare. Doubling plainest at 18".

Incredibly fresh and somewhat prooflike with delicate green-gold coloration.

Very well struck, a rare exception on this notoriously weakly struck date. In fact, finding a specimen with full radials in all stars AND well struck in the central portions of the design is quite a coup.

This coin shades the Smithsonian’s sole example of this issue, which was graded by Messrs. Jeff Garrett and Ron Guth as AU50.

Purchased in the 1930’s at face value by Karl Stecher from coins turned in by the public as per President Roosevelt’s March 9, 1933 directive. The coin was housed in a kraft envelope with the inscription "1847o 2.50 vf was proof", since it was plucked out of that "river of gold" some 73 years ago.

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.

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