The Confederate Dahlonega Dollar…1861-D - Fun Show Newp

[JJSingleton]

The 1861-D Dollar has been called the King of Gold Dollars. It is the rarest gold dollar and it was minted under the auspices of the Confederacy. The mintage is unknown and was previously believed to be 1000 –1500. But recent research by Dahlonega Mint Historian, Carl Lester, indicates the mintage was likely less than 1000.

 

Despite the fact that Georgia voted to secede from the Union in January 1861, George Kellogg, the Dahlonega Mint Superintendent continued to report to the US Mint through February. The final mintage report sent to Philadelphia in early March showed that only 1597 Half Eagles and no dollars had been minted YTD. So based upon the final numbers reported to the US Mint it is clear that all 1861-D Dollars that exist were minted while the Dahlonega Branch Mint was under Confederate control.

 

As a Dahlonega collector this is my dream coin. This dollar is wholly original and just a fantastic example. From the FUN HA auction through Al Adams at Gold Rush Gallery. The Chestatee Collection are Dukes Creek Collection duplicates.

 

All comments and questions welcomed

 

Image by Todd at BluCC.

 

[Raisethis2]

That coin certainly does have it's own special nitche in American history. Rare as hens teeth. I've never see one as best I can remember.

[SkyMan]

Lovely looking, and rare, gold dollar!

[physics-fan3.14]

Dahlonega gold is so freakin' cool, and that's one of the coolest. Great pickup, and congrats!

[wheat'swheats]

Al has come up with much ga gold over the 40 or so years I have known him , and he is a good guy to work with.

[wdrob]

 

Instead of buying one more coin, I should invest in a high quality metal detector and comb every square inch of my acreage here. Surely one of those made it a mere 30 miles from the mint.

 

Beautiful example!

 

 

 

 

[$ilverHawk]

Congratulations on picking up your dream coin. Thanks for the historical background. It's amazing what history can be found in coins.

 

What is the reason that the Dahlonega Mint continued to produce Gold Dollars with "United States of America" after secession?

 

Carl

[KeyMan64]

(thumbs u

[JJSingleton]

Congratulations on picking up your dream coin. Thanks for the historical background. It's amazing what history can be found in coins.

 

What is the reason that the Dahlonega Mint continued to produce Gold Dollars with "United States of America" after secession?

 

Carl

The Branch Mints did not manufacture dies. All dies were manufactured in Philadelphia and shipped to the Branch Mints. So the Dahlonega Mint staff had no means to create new CSA dies.

 

The decision to close the mints in the south came in May. The Dahlonega mint then operated as an Assay Office until the end of the war.

[leeg]

Very Nice!

 

Congrat's

 

(thumbs u

[jpcienkus]

Congratulations on acquiring your dream coin. It is a beauty! Thank you for the background and history.

[RWB]

The Dahlonega Mint was located in a part of Georgia that was pro-Union and it is unclear when the facility came under the full control of either the State of Georgia or the Confederacy. Coins struck after February and before June, when the Confederate government closed the Mint, were not necessarily struck for the account or by authority of either Georgia or the Confederate government.

 

After the Mint was closed, all bullion and coins on hand were shipped to Charleston for use of the Confederate government.

 

Lewis Quillian was appointed assayer and caretaker for the Mint building and occupied it during the war. Records of the Mint remained intact into the 1870s when they were moved to make room for educational use of the building.

 

[BKW]

Congrats on a fabulous pick-up

[DaveG]

Roger,

 

Any idea whether any of the information from the post-loss-of-Federal-control period was sent to Washington after the Civil War ended?

 

(As you know, in the 1887 Mint Annual Report, the Mint, for the first time, integrated the post-loss-of-Federal-control mintages at New Orleans into its records, even though the information had been transmitted to Washington much earlier. In that Mint Annual Report, the Mint said "The local records of the mint at Dahlonega have not survived the disorganization of that institution in 1861.")

[delta]

A fascinating piece, thanks for sharing, and congrats for obtaining it. Doesn't it appear as if all the devices and lettering on the obverse are double struck, or if not, how do you explain the apparent shadowing around them?

[delta]

A fascinating piece, thanks for sharing, and congrats for obtaining it. Doesn't it appear as if all the devices and lettering on the obverse are double struck, or if not, how do you explain the apparent shadowing around them?

 

Aha, the secondary outline on the obverse is the so-called Longacre Doubling, a phenomenon thoroughly explained on pages 428 to 430 of the 2013 book From Mine to Mint by Roger W. Burdette.

 

I can hopefully be excused for not knowing this until late last night, because my autographed copy of the book hadn't arrived at the post office until yesterday afternoon.

 

No serious collector of US coins should be without that book.

[RWB]

Dave,

Supposedly the mint caretaker took the records home before the building was turned over to Georgia. I don't think they found their way to the archives.

 

Delta,

You might have set a record for shortest elapsed time in using a new book. I persume you sarched on the CD.

[delta]

Delta,

You might have set a record for shortest elapsed time in using a new book. I presume you searched on the CD.

 

Hello RWB, No, never tried opening the CD. I had intended to read only about 10 or 20 pages of the book while lying in bed at around midnight, preparing to sleep, but couldn't tear myself away, what with all the unbelievably fascinating details of the old US mint, starting with the metallurgy and chemical engineering, and ended up skimming through the whole volume, until 7 AM, unslept. Otherwise I'd never have come across the Longacre Doubling, since I wasn't looking for it at all, and had no idea what it would have been called, and it was only pure coincidence I had just asked about the conspicuous doubling, which strangely nobody else had commented on. Thanks for enclosing the CD, but I greatly prefer to read real books.

 

 

[RWB]

WoW an all-nighter.....!

My writing usually puts people to sleep.

 

The purpose of the CD is to let folks search for any word or phrase, but like you, I prefer to hold a real book in my hand.

[JVC]

Great looking coin. I love old gold from the south.

[delta]

It's true, I read myself to sleep every night, and it usually takes less than an hour, the result being piles of books around my bedstead, maybe about 50 of them, in various stages of incompletion, all non-fiction.

 

It's fairly common for readers to find themselves unable to sleep without completing fictional thrillers, but uncommon with technical non-fiction writing. I was just drawn to the fascinating explanations along so many different lines of description, with various social and scientific implications, plus eureka moments, of which just a minor one was the Longacre Doubling, so very conspicuous on this 1861 Dahlonega, probably struck from native Georgian gold, perhaps mined by slaves, on the cusp of the Civil War.

 

Probably that Longacre Doubling is a phenomenon so well known to others on this forum it was not even worth mentioning, and it's a term I vaguely remember hearing about while not paying serious attention, but since it doesn't characterize any of the coins in my own personal collection, I had ignorantly just asked about it hours previously.

 

WoW an all-nighter.....!

My writing usually puts people to sleep.

 

The purpose of the CD is to let folks search for any word or phrase, but like you, I prefer to hold a real book in my hand.

[Conder101]

it's a term I vaguely remember hearing about while not paying serious attention, but since it doesn't characterize any of the coins in my own personal collection,

If your collection has 19th century coins from 1849 to the 1880's there is a good chance that you do have some with Longacre doubling. Especially if you have indian head cents, nickel three cent, shield nickels or especially gold dollars in your collection. Longacre doubling shows up on all coin series that had their designs created or modified during Longacre's tenure and continued after his death until the hubs were again modified. (I know it lasted on the reverse of the indian head cent through the end of the series.)

 

It won't show on every coin, but it is most commonly seen on early die stages of high mintage coins, and those with short die lives like the coppernickel coins.

[delta]

Thanks for summarizing. Here's a follow up question please. How do you explain that although everything on the obverse of that 1861 Dahlonega gold dollar shows Longacre doubling, except the dentils, on the reverse there's only a weak trace of it around the large numeral 1, and virtually none elsewhere?

 

it's a term I vaguely remember hearing about while not paying serious attention, but since it doesn't characterize any of the coins in my own personal collection,

If your collection has 19th century coins from 1849 to the 1880's there is a good chance that you do have some with Longacre doubling. Especially if you have indian head cents, nickel three cent, shield nickels or especially gold dollars in your collection. Longacre doubling shows up on all coin series that had their designs created or modified during Longacre's tenure and continued after his death until the hubs were again modified. (I know it lasted on the reverse of the indian head cent through the end of the series.)

 

It won't show on every coin, but it is most commonly seen on early die stages of high mintage coins, and those with short die lives like the coppernickel coins.

[RWB]

Obv and rev master dies and hubs were different and made at different times - often by different diesinkers.

 

Longacre doubling occurs when a matrix or punch is forced into the steel too deeply and the outline of the matrix becomes visible. To get the maximum relief, this could be tolerated on a master die (and hub) provided it was abraded off the working die. If abrasion were incomplete or the die were retouched some of the matrix outline would remain visible.

 

An strong engraver with solid quality control skills would have condemned coins showing the matrix outline - but production usually came first, especially at the small gold mints.

 

Until Charles Barber became engraver in 1880, the engraver and coiner did not seem to cooperate with the goal of highest quality. In the 1840s and 50s it was common for the engraver not to see any of the coins made by the coiner unless the coiner thought there was a die problem. Certain parts of dies were often made in the coining dept. and not by the engraver.

 

[originalisbest]

Very interesting RWB -- and the '61-D dollar is fantastic -- really an unimprovable example, for all intents and purposes.

[zboyle04]

that is cool, i was just looking at civil war gold on ebay, now i really want to get one, although a cheaper one than yours

[delta]

The 1861-D gold dollar of JJSingleton purchased at FUN slightly more than a year ago, pictured above, and discussed here, seems to me far more attractive in AU-58 than the piece in last week's Heritage Auction graded MS-61, sold for $70,500 including commission, but possibly the photos of Heritage were not fully adequate.

 

Here's a link to the Heritage coin: lot 3233 at Long Beach

 

Certainly the clash marks in the reverse are more clearly shown in JJSingleton's. I've never seen any explanations for those clash marks, which seem to be derived from devices of the reverse rather than the obverse as would normally be expected.

[RWB]

It is not uncommon for real AU gold to be much nicer than MS61 or 62 -- or even MS63 pieces. I picked up a very nice 1851-D dollar in AU which is, in my opinion, a far more attractive coin than the 1851-D uncs. often seen. The tiny rub does nothing to detract from the coin.

[delta]

Incidentally, there's a minor difference between the two 1861-D dollars involved. Note the apparently misshapen top of the second numeral 1 in the date of the AU-58 as compared with the more usual 1 in the MS-61.

 

Evidently not a different die variety, but something happened that needs explanation. Along with an explanation for the apparently anomalous clash marks, clash marks that may partially differ between these two examples.

[delta]

It is not uncommon for real AU gold to be much nicer than MS61 or 62 -- or even MS63 pieces. I picked up a very nice 1851-D dollar in AU which is, in my opinion, a far more attractive coin than the 1851-D uncs. often seen. The tiny rub does nothing to detract from the coin.

 

In this particular case, after carefulIy scrutinizing the photos, especially comparing the high points of the designs, I see more actual rub or wear on the MS-61 than on the AU-58.