1849 $5 California Gold Half Eagle - Moffat & Co. PCGS AU53

Here a treasured issue from the early days of the California Gold Rush. Before the Assay Office and later the San Francisco Mint minted slugs and coins, the people of Gold Rush California depended upon private assayers and minters. The leading firm at that time was Moffat & Co. PCGS has graded 10 pieces as AU53 with 34 finer. Collectors Universe gives this issue a price of $9,000.00 in AU53.

Ron Guth writes in PCGS Coinfacts, “The 1849 Moffat & Company Five Dollars is the most often seen type of Moffat & Company gold coins, but it is still a very scarce coin. Most examples are heavily circulated. About Uncirculated examples are rare and less than two dozen Uncirculated examples are known.”

A photo of San Francisco during the California Gold Rush, circa 1851. Photo: Library of Congress.

The most important private gold firm during the California Gold Rush was Moffat & Co. When the U.S. government decided to open the branch mint in San Francisco, they asked two of the firm's partners for assistance. The senior founder, John Little Moffat, had much experience in gold mining and production, having worked in the gold fields of Georgia and North Carolina and as an assayer before heading to California.  When in California, Moffat and his partners set up an assaying and smelting business. Since they had endorsements from people such as the Secretary of the Treasury, Moffat & Co. hit the ground running upon arriving in California.

They initially produced rectangular gold ingots that, while quite impractical, provided desperately needed coinage. Soon after setting up their shop, they engaged the services of German die sinker Albrecht Ferdinand Kuner, who later engraved California's State Seal. Kuner modeled his work upon the federal Coronet Liberty head gold coinage of the period. While they were not the first private issues during the Gold Rush, they were considered to be of such exceptional quality that they sealed Moffat & Co.'s reputation as the leading private mint of the Gold Rush period. Kuner's half eagles were produced from the fall of 1849 until early 1850.