NGC 25th Anniversary Display ** 2012 FUN SHOW EXHIBIT **
1854 DOUBLE EAGLE Ex: HUMBERT/GARRETT

Owner Comments:

While Congress dithered over whether to establish a branch mint in the Gold Rush boomtown of San Francisco, commercial assayers filled the need for coined money during the years 1849-55. Produced in imitation of the federal twenty-dollar piece, this coin instead bears the imprint of Kellogg & Co. of San Francisco, one of the most trusted of the minting firms. It is a presentation or specimen piece, one coined as a keepsake for federal assayer Augustus Humbert. Later it passed into the legendary collection of Baltimore’s Garrett Family. It was subsequently willed in 1942 to the Johns Hopkins University and de-accessioned by that institution in 1980.