California Gold "Tokens" are tough to figure out. It's kind of like panning for gold and knowing what to keep in the pan and what to dump out. The big nuggets are pretty obvious, but the smaller pieces are sometimes difficult to see...

Howdy:

Been collecting California Gold Tokens for about seven years or so. They are pretty cool but you have got to know a little bit about them before you reach into your wallet (or purse). There are a lot of replicas floating around; just look at ebay today under the category of Fractional Pioneer Gold and you will see lots of 1852 Indian Head tokens, all labeled very rare. If they are so rare, why are ten, fifteen, twenty or more listed at the same time? Answer: replicas and not rare.

The Bad: All the modern replicas are annoying, but when advertised as such, they can be easily ignored as one searches for a "real" California Gold Token.

The Ugly: Not all modern replicas are advertised as replicas and some are advertised as "gold" because they look gold in color. This should be a "no-no" on ebay.

The Good: I like to collect "Arms of California" gold tokens. They have not been replicated in modern times and most of them actually are gold (8K-12K). But better than that, they were actually made between 1884 and 1910 as a general rule, although many were "backdated" to the 1850's.

How can you tell if the token is "good" or "bad" or even "ugly" ? One pretty sure way is to send it in to NGC to have it certified and graded. Now, this costs a small fortune if you send in a lot of them, and NGC does tend to bend these ultra thin, gold pieces on occasion. They also sometimes make errors on the attribution, but these are fairly rare. Once certified, these small tokens are protected, certified, and graded. Sure makes it easier to sell them on ebay. The current costs for these types of tokens on ebay range from $149.00 to $850.00 (although the seller asking $850.00 is just fishing for the big one).

More later. CGTG

To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.