1856-S $20 Liberty Head Double Eagle, 17J PCGS MS62 Ex. SS Central America

This specimen in the exclusive PCGS Gold Foil holder is Variety 17J: Split Serif. PCGS has awarded the grade of MS62 to 14 examples, with only 7 finer.

Gold specialist Doug Winter writes on the popularity of collecting Type 1 Liberty head double eagles (1850-1866): "If I had to pick a single event as the impetus for the surge in interest for these coins, I would go with the discovery of the SS Central America shipwreck. I vividly remember the massive amount of interest these coins generated among collectors and non-collectors alike."

Gold coins on the ocean's floor amidst the ruins of the SS Central America. Perhaps this offering from AUCM is among them.

Those coins began to slowly enter the collector market in 2000, and by 2001-2002 thousands of such coins were available to the numismatic community. Coins from the Central America were well-preserved and expertly conserved before being graded by PCGS.

Doug Winter writes, "The marketing for this group of double eagles ... was masterful and hundreds of serious collectors were created. The prevailing thought was that if someone entered the market as an investor and bought a nice ... double eagle from the shipwreck, by providing him with massive amounts of research and history it would be possible to create many new collectors ..." Before 2000, the supply of high-end Type One double eagles, such as the 1856-S offered by AUCM, was very limited. "But, "writes Winter, "you had a perfect storm of increased supply coupled with increased demand not to mention a rise in gold prices and considerable mainstream interest in gold as an inflation hedge among hard money advocates."