Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1910 — OLD COINS RISING IN VALUE. [ARTICLE]

OLD COINS RISING IN VALUE.

Collator* Paying High Price* so» Special Denomination*. The advance in value of rare American gold coins is strikingly manifested by a comparison of the prices paid recently and in the period between 1860 and 1895. For some reason collectors formerly took little interest in coins struck In? gold. It was not that the investment ’required was too great, for they paid high prices for the early rare American cents, but they did not seem to fancy gold coins, ana what are now considered the greatest coin rarities went for the proverbial song, says an exchange. One of the pest illustrations of the advance is shown by the price brought this year by the two unique SSO gold pieces for which W. H. Woodin of New York paid the world’s record price of SIO,OOO each, an exchange says. Veteral dealers In coins declare that it Is by no means an exaggeration to say that in 1877, the year of the issue of the SSO pieces mentioned, very few collectors would have bought them at their bullion value in gold for SIOO. This statement is borne out by the records of coin sales in the latter part of the ’7os. Some of the rarest of the gold pattern coins, in" which series the SSO pieces are classed, sold then for little more than face value. Now the same coins would bring a hundred times as much. One of the rarest of American gold coins Is the $5 gold piece made by the private minting firm of Dubosq A Co. at San Francisco in 1850. In 1884 a specimenof this coin offered at auction brought only $6.40. That was the last and only time the Dubosq $5 piece has been offered for sale. As a matter of fact, the specimen sold Is the only one of which there is any record. Even the mint cabinet at Philadelphia does not contain one of these pieces. It is not known where this solitary specimen is now. Its value *can only be guessed at.