LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2007 (ANA) Signature Coin Auction #444  / 

2155

1849 $2 1/2 Mormon Quarter Eagle AU53 PCGS

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / US Coins Start Price:42,500.00 USD Estimated At:1.00 - 1,000,000.00 USD
1849 $2 1/2 Mormon Quarter Eagle AU53 PCGS
<B>1849 $2 1/2 Mormon Quarter Eagle AU53 PCGS.</B></I> K-1, High R.5. The Mormons under their leader, Brigham Young, played an integral part of the early days of the California Gold Rush. After the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were murdered in 1843 by an angry mob in Carthage, Illinois, in early 1846 new Mormon leader Young led his followers westward through Iowa and Nebraska, ending up in the Territory of Utah in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. There they established the Mormon community they called Deseret, which would become Salt Lake City. It was a Mormon, James Marshall, who discovered gold at Sutter's Mill in January 1848, and as soon as Church members began paying their tithes in gold dust, Young set about coining the dust into "coin-ingots" of uniform weight and fineness (Kagin). The first gold coins minted in the West were not in California, but rather in Utah, in December 1848 when the first Mormon gold coinage, 25 ten dollar coins, dropped from the dies. More coins followed shortly thereafter. Young, blacksmith John Mobourn Kay, and John Taylor designed the coins thusly: "On one side the phrase 'HOLINESS TO THE LORD' encircling the emblem of Priesthood--a three-point Phrygian crown over the all-seeing eye of Jehovah; on the reverse encircling clasped hands, the emblem of friendship, should occur the words, 'PURE GOLD' and the denomination of the coin." <BR> Coinage resumed in April 1849 after acids and crucibles for melting coins were received. The second minting consisted of two-and-a-half, five, and twenty dollar pieces. They retained the clasped hands and all-seeing eye, but G.L.S.C.P.G. was added for "Great Salt Lake City Pure Gold," and DO. stood for DOLLARS on the smaller two and a half dollar pieces. Since no new ten dollar pieces are known with the new design, it likely indicates that the previous dies were used for that denomination.<BR> Kagin quotes an accounting of the relative productions in the Salt Lake <I>Tribune </B></I>of July 17, 1898: "At first the $2½ pieces were most plentiful and popular. Then a large number of $5 coins were made, and these, with the first named, constituted the bulk of the mint's work. Not many $10 pieces were minted, and the $20 coins were still fewer."<BR> This example of the Mormon "quarter eagle" shows the weakness that is characteristic of the issue, here chiefly on the lower obverse through LINESS TO and the lower eye. Much luster remains, over surfaces that alternate yellow-gold and reddish-gold. A nice example of the type, and attractive for the assigned grade as well. Listed on page 365 of the 2008 <I>Guide Book. </B></I>Population: 2 in 53, 8 finer (7/07).<BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Coins & Currency (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
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