Bill jones Type II Gold Dollars
1856-S

Owner Comments:

The 1856-S gold dollar is a very unusual coin. While the rest of the U.S. Mint System was switching to the Type III gold dollar, the San Francisco Mint continued to issue the old Type II coins.

I believe that the Philadelphia Mint sent out the old style dies during the early part of the year because the Type III dies were not available. In those days it took two months to send a package or a person to San Francisco. The San Francisco Mint did not issue any gold dollars in 1855 after it had introduced these coins to the west coast in 1854.

The coin displayed above has considerable luster with smooth lightly worn surfaces. The mark to the right of the "U" in "UNITED" is considerably overblown because of my lack of photographic skills.

This is the "double S" variety which was once touted has a rarity. Today the variety books state that the "double S" and the normal variety are equally scarce. During my search for this coin I saw more examples of the "double S" than the normal variety, but my sample size was not large enough to be statistically significant.