1885-S Liberty Head Double Eagle. MS-64 (PCGS).A highly lustrous pinkish-honey example with a razor sharp strike and carefully preserved, fully Choice-quality surfaces. The mintage for this issue is 683,500 coins ($13,670,000 face value). Similar to contemporary San Francisco Mint twenties most 1885-S examples promptly entered circulation; many others were shipped overseas as a component of international trade, and still others were set aside for the backing of Gold Certificates. David W. Akers, writing in 1982, enumerated a few dozen Uncirculated examples that he found listed in a survey of major auction sales going back to the 1940s. By 2004, when Q. David Bowers penned his emGuide Book of Double Eagles/em, the supply was estimated at between 2,000 and 4,000 examples, this being in a different era after significant quantities of classic U.S. Mint gold coins had been repatriated from foreign bank hoards. While plentiful in lower grades, the 1885-S remains rare at and near the Gem Mint State level, as here. This is an impressive coin worthy of the strongest bids.From the Fairmont Collection.
