1851 San Francisco Standard Mint $5 Die Trial. K-1. Rarity-7+. Nickel Alloy. Plain Edge. MS-64 (PCGS).22.7 mm. 61.4 grains. This beautiful example is essentially as made with bright golden-brown patina and reflective fields. Detail is razor sharp throughout, the reverse triple struck, evidence of which is quite bold on most design elements on that side of the coin. The surfaces are a bit spotty, although the most useful provenance marker is a small carbon fleck in the obverse field above Libertys coronet. This is a rare and enigmatic type, Adams knowing of only a single specimen, a Proof sold in 1864. Since then only a few others have turned up, including the Kagin plate coin (Mint State, also spotty), the Ford duplicate (again, Mint State with considerable spotting) that appeared as lot 10102 in our September 2013 Ford XXIV sale, the Clifford specimen that appeared most recently in an NGC MS-61 holder as lot 4418 in our August 2013 Chicago ANA sale, the AU Details--Environmental Damage Rajj Collection coin, lot 7564 in our August 2011 Chicago ANA Sale, and a well worn piece that sold as lot 2264 in our (Stacks) sale of July 2008. With its superior technical quality and eye appeal the present example might be the Proof referred to by Adams; in any event it is the finest example of the type that we have ever handled and would serve as a highlight in an advanced cabinet.Little is known about the San Francisco Standard Mint. It was certainly a private venture with no connection to the federally sponsored United States Assay Office of Gold or the later San Francisco Mint. Some numismatic scholars believe that the dies and the coins that they struck were made in the East by some person or entity that hoped to engage in coinage upon their relocation to the West Coast. Others, Donald H. Kagin and John J. Ford, Jr. among them, believed that these die trials were made in Birmingham, England in 1851 by an English company as a proposed general coinage for Gold Rush California. Proponents of that theory suggest that the initials W.J.T. on the base of Libertys portrait represent the British engraver William J. Taylor. In either case, the San Francisco Standard Mint die trials are notable rarities that seldom appear on the market at any level of preservation. A find for the advanced collector of California Gold Rush coinage and related issues.From the Samuel J. Berngard Collection. From our (Stacks) sale of the John J. Ford, Jr. Collection, Part XX, October 2007, lot 3267.
