Owner Comments:
Based upon the appearance of the surviving coins, it is obvious that the Charlotte mint never got the hang of making the larger sized, 15 millimeter, gold dollars. The three issues that the Charlotte personnel made, 1855-C, 1857-C and 1859-C are noted for weak strikes and poorly prepared planchets (coin blanks.). The coins seldom if ever display all of the design details, even on Mint State pieces and often display uneven surfaces.
Among the three dates, the 1855-C gold dollar is the worst. Virtually all of the known examples have weak hair detail above Ms. Liberty's forehead, poorly defined plumes in her headdress and weak definition of the word "LIBERTY" on her bonnet. Combined with the weak strikes, the planchets usually had uneven surfaces, and the dies were often damaged with clash marks where they had mistakenly come together without a coin blank between them.
The coin pictured above is no exception. The design elements are weak and the surfaces are "lumpy." The saving grace, although it does not show in these photographs is that the coin has a fair amount of mint luster in the protected areas of the design. This accounts for the EF-45 grade the coin received.
Finding an 1855-C gold dollar at a major coin show is not difficult given that the coin is popular and the mintage was a fairly healthy 9,803 pieces. Finding a truly attractive example is virtually impossible. Locating one that looks "half way decent" is the best that most collectors can do, and that description applies to this piece.