1915-S Pan-Pac $50 Octagonal leads the pack with $92,000; popular 1915-S $50 Round follows close at $86,250

One thing was clearly on the minds of collectors at the $9.4 million+ Heritage Auctions Houston U.S. Coin Auction on Dec. 6, and that was gold. More than 3,600 bidders participated in the event, which sold through fully 93% of the lots offered, or 87% by dollar value.

“We expected gold to perform well at this auction,” said Greg Rohan, President of Heritage Auctions, “especially with the spot price of gold at $1200. While gold did dominate the top lots of the Houston sale, it’s also encouraging to look at the overall results and see that the coin market is remaining steady.”

The year 1915 seemed to be foremost in the minds of collectors in Houston, as two sculptural, splendid Panama-Pacific $50 gold pieces came in as the event’s top two lots.

While the round Pan-Pac $50 commemoratives are the rarer examples in the absolute sense, the octagonal variety has always proved the more popular, as evidenced by the auction’s top price-getter, a gorgeous Near-Gem 1915-S Panama-Pacific $50 Octagonal MS64 PCGS, which led the way with a final price of $92,000. All prices include a 15% Buyer’s Premium.

If the Octagonal variety of the Pan-Pac $50 was the top prize in Houston, a superb round 1915-S $50 Panama-Pacific $50 MS64 NGC was close behind in terms of price with a highly respectable $86,250 finish. The $50 round has the distinctive status of having the lowest net distribution, at 483 coins, of any commemorative issue made in the United States. (more…)

The Jay Brahin Collection, a selection of seven key date Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles assembled by a collector with a keen eye for quality will be offered as a part of Heitage’s Platinum Night festivities at 2010 January Orlando, FL FUN US Coin Auction, taking place January 6-10 in Orlando and over the Internet at www.HA.com/Coins.

Jay Brahin’s name is well known to both the numismatic and investment communities. Although he can trace his first interest in rare coins back to the 1960s, he became a serious numismatist after the Millennium. His rise to the upper echelon of gold collectors was rapid, but it was based on three decades of investment acumen as a personal portfolio manager.

He quickly developed personal relationships with the key players and dealers in American gold, and his list of friends is a Who’s Who of American numismatics. The search for quality was the natural result of old business lessons and this new expert advice, and following old traditions.

Mr. Brahin also gives back to the coin community, currently serving as President of the 20th Century Gold Club. He has also become a sought after resource for books and articles on twentieth century gold coins, and his opinions can be found in the Wall Street Journal as well as CoinLink.

All seven coins in the collection are graded by PCGS, and all seven coins have received CAC stickers signifying that they are among the very best examples of their grade. (more…)

Exactly five Indian cents are known on gold planchets, according to information available. Among them are three dated 1900, this piece dated 1905, and an example dated 1906.

The Judd pattern reference lists 1900 and 1907 gold cents in the section on mint errors. However, Andrew W. Pollock, III listed the 1900 gold Indian cents as P-1990 in the regular pattern section of his reference.

Pollock writes: “Listed in Judd as a mint error, but it is difficult to imagine that a Mint employee would be so careless as to feed gold planchets into a coinage press fitted with one-cent piece dies.” Pollock suggests that these pieces may have been deliberately struck for one or more collectors.

One example dated 1900 is also known in silver, from the identical dies as the 1900 gold Indian cents, suggesting they were all made at or near the same time. Rick Snow writes in A Guide Book of Flying Eagle and Indian Head Cents that “both the silver and gold examples are struck from the same dies, with light roughness on the reverse die, probably from die rust.” That all three 1900 pieces have higher weights suggests that they were specially made, perhaps without the knowledge of Mint officials.

Fred Weinberg explains that “the weights vary because in all probability, they were on planchets that might not have been filed down to the proper weight spread.” Hand adjusting of individual gold planchets continued in the Mint until circa 1910. Those three pieces are almost certainly fancy pieces made for collectors, while the 1905 and 1906 examples, on correct weight planchets, are more likely pieces truly made in error, and substantially more important as such. (more…)