MAURICE STORCK FRACTIONAL GOLD COINS

Next week, Heritage Auctions will be offering the Maurice Storck Collection. Storck was a coin dealer who was active starting in the 1950s and famously attended the King Farouk sale that was held in Cairo, Egypt in 1954. When he died last year at the age of 97, he was the last US numismatist who attended that sale in person. His collection contains an interesting array of US rarities and will be warmly received, as are all old-time collections when they enter the marketplace.

While reviewing the catalog, one section was of particular interest to me: over three hundred lots of Californian fractional gold coins. This is a very comprehensive offering and is sure to garner considerable attention from specialized collectors of this series.

California fractional gold coins have always been one of my favorite series. In the 1980s, I assembled a large collection and later sold them, much to my regret today. Maurice Storck, like many coin dealers and collectors of the past, was probably drawn to their relatively low cost and historical significance.

My appreciation for Californian fractional gold coins deepened several years ago when the Odyssey Marine Corporation was excavating the shipwreck site of SS Central America. I was hired to perform a series of appraisals as material was brought up from the seafloor.

I had the opportunity to closely examine thousands of wonderful US gold coins. As much as I found them interesting, however, my most fascinating discovery was the presence of quantities of California fractional gold coins. These tiny gold coins clearly circulated during the California Gold Rush. It's hard to believe that something as small as the California gold quarter dollars actually was used as money. The proof was in these Tupperware containers.

Due to the scarcity of smaller denomination coins during the Gold Rush, privately minted quarter, half, and dollar coins were minted starting in 1852. These coins circulated alongside smaller-size silver coins from around the world, many of which were also found on the Central America. The fractional gold coins were lightweight but were still accepted in commerce.

Dozens of private companies minted California fractional gold coins, and there are about 575 different varieties known of all types. The standard reference for the series is California Pioneer Fractional Gold by Walter Breen and Ron Gillio. Coins are assigned BG numbers when attributed.

To read the complete article, see:
Jeff Garrett: Fractional Gold Comes to Market (https://coinweek.com/us-coins/jeff-garrett-fractional-gold-comes-to-market/)

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