2017-10-05 Thu

Issued privately by California assayers Baldwin & Company, the lovely Choice VF eagle finds its place in the November 2017 Baltimore Auction. George C. Baldwin and Thomas S. Holman of Baldwin & Company began their journey as jewellers and watchmakers in San Francisco and entered the private coining business on 15th March 1850, after taking over F.D. Kohler & Company’s operations.

It was not until May that Baldwin & Co. posted a notice advertising their assay, refining and coining business. They were producing extraordinary quantities of $5 and $10 gold pieces. The dies were finely produced and were almost certainly the work of noted engraver Albert Kuner.

By the year 1851, the San Francisco Herald reported that Baldwin & Co.’s output nearly matched that of the United States Assay Office of Gold.

The $5 coin is very similar to the federal half eagle, but the 1850 $10 bears Kuner’s famed “Vaquero” obverse with a mounted cowboy swinging a lasso. In 1851, the firm added $20 gold pieces to their collection and circulation continued.

But everything came to an end when renowned newspaper editor James King of William submitted samples of each denomination to Augustus Humbert for assay. Humbert reported that the Baldwin pieces were underweight: the $20 piece had $19.40 of gold, the $10 only $9.40, while the $5 coin fared better with a valuation of $4.91. There were some obvious weight discrepancies, which affected Baldwin’s business. Branded a “short-weight gold swindle”, the pieces were driven from circulation, as businesses didn’t acknowledge them except at a steep discount.

Baldwin did everything in his power to counter the accusations with a favourable assay from Kohler, but the wound was too deep and Baldwin closed up shop and left California on the steamship Panama. As a result, not only did almost all of the Baldwin & Co. coins end up in the melting pot, so too did most of the other private coiners’ products.

Now, Baldwin & Co. coins are prized by numismatists attracted to pioneer California gold. The offered example is amazing with bright brassy-gold colour. Struck from a terminal state of the dies, a large cud occupies the upper right obverse border from one to two o’clock, accompanying a network of die cracks around the peripheries on both sides. The surfaces are uniformly worn but have no singularly distracting abrasions. Bold and attractive, this is a desirable VF piece.

This handsome relic of the California Gold Rush will be offered in Rarities Night of November 2017 Official Auction of the Whitman Coin & Collectibles Baltimore Expo, appearing alongside such treasures as a Mint State 1792 Silver Center cent from the Cardinal Collection Educational Foundation and a Choice Mint State 1796 Stars quarter eagle from the Murray Hill Collection.