1849 PACIFIC COMPANY $5 GOLD PIECE

 

Right on the heels of our record-breaking sale of the 1850 Baldwin $10, which achieved $1.26 million in our November Rarities Night, another iconic, seven-figure territorial rarity will cross the block in our February 2025 Rarities Night.

The Pacific Company was one of the earliest of the private mints established in California during the Gold Rush. It is widely accepted that the Pacific Company formed in Boston on January 8, 1849 by John W. Cartwright is the organization originally behind the Pacific Company coinage. Composed of 38 subscribers who contributed $1,000 each to join, the Pacific Company bought and outfitted the vessel York. Included in their equipment were sets of dies for a planned issue of $1, $2.50, $5, and $10 gold pieces. The four denominations all bear a version of the same design: on the obverse is a Liberty cap with stars and rays (closely resembling Mexican silver coins of the period) with the denomination indicated below and on the reverse is a heraldic eagle clutching an olive branch and hammer surrounded by the legend, PACIFIC COMPANY, CALIFORNIA. and the date 1849.

The York sailed out of Boston Harbor on April 1, 1849 and arrived in San Francisco Bay on September 16. One of the company members presciently observed in his diary: "All that board us say that our company will break up as all others have done." That is indeed what happened not long after the party arrived at their destination of Benicia on October 8. Scarcely 12 days later the Pacific Company was officially dissolved, and its members went their separate ways without having ever struck a single gold coin.

Based on a thorough analysis of surviving Pacific Company coins, the dies apparently came into the possession of well-established assay company Broderick & Kohler in San Francisco soon after the original company's dissolution. Col. Jonathan D. Stevenson, a former commander of a regiment of New York Volunteers and a veteran of the Mexican War, found early success in the Gold Rush. He brought in fellow New Yorkers Frederick D. Kohler and David C. Broderick to begin an assay and refining firm that soon branched out into coining using the Pacific Company dies. Broderick & Kohler opted to use the dies with no modification to produce their own coinage, primarily consisting of $5 and $10 pieces.

Unlike most private coiners, Broderick & Kohler did not use a screw press but instead produced their coins using a sledgehammer. When the coins were introduced into daily commerce, they were initially accepted at par under the premise that anything was better than using raw gold dust and placer gold. However, like many other of the earliest private coiners during the Gold Rush, the coin's purity was inconsistent at best, mostly based on the fineness of the metal as originally mined without much further refinement. While some coiners tried to compensate for this by making their coins heavier, the Pacific Company coins were not, earning the business a decent return on investment while short-changing the public who used the coins.

This business model fared well for both Broderick and Kohler because of the high profit margin, and combined with their successful real estate investments, they soon were able to shutter their assay and coining business. Broderick was elected state senator in January of 1850 and left the partnership. Kohler carried on only until March before shuttering the business and selling off all the firm's equipment to Baldwin & Co., long before the comparatively low purity of their product was discovered. When examples of the $5 and $10 coins were assayed by the United States Mint at Philadelphia in 1851, they were found to have an intrinsic value of $4.48 and an astonishingly low $7.76, respectively, among the lowest of the private issuers at the time. Once news of the poor assays reached California, the coins were promptly rejected as sub-par and quickly found themselves in melting pots, accounting for the tremendous rarity of any Pacific Company issue today. Despite the assay results, Kohler and Broderick's reputations appear to have not been substantially impacted. Kohler became State Assayer the following month and continued in local public service until his death in 1864. Broderick was eventually elected U.S. Senator for California in 1857, an office he held until he was killed in a duel in 1859.

The piece featured in Stack's Bowers Galleries' March auction is the finest of only four known examples, pedigreed to the Garrett Collection and graded AU-58 by PCGS and approved by CAC. As the finest known for this intriguing and exceedingly rare issue, the significance of the Garrett specimen for advanced collectors of private and territorial gold coinage cannot be overstated. Its offering in this sale represents a singular opportunity that is worthy of the strongest bids and most aggressive strategy. Once this specimen sells it may be many years, if not decades, before there is another opportunity to acquire a Pacific Company gold coin of any denomination.

The coin is an outstanding Choice About Uncirculated example with dominant honey-gold color on frosty surfaces. Both sides retain abundant mint luster, and the fields are semi-reflective, with vivid reddish-rose iridescence outlining the design elements. The strike is well executed for the type, the detail generally sharp with just the characteristic softness to the eagle's breast and legs in the center of the reverse. That side is rotated slightly more than 90 degrees clockwise from coin alignment. There are only minor handling marks scattered about, all of which are easily overlooked in hand, while a shallow planchet flaw in the upper right reverse field is as made and serves as the most useful identifier.

The four known Pacific Company $5s are as follows:

1 – PCGS/CAC AU-58. Ex our (Bowers and Ruddy's) sale of the Garrett Collection for The Johns Hopkins University, Part II, March 1980, lot 935; Heritage's sale of the Riverboat Collection, April 2014 CSNS Signature Auction, lot 5433. The present example. The early provenance of this coin is unknown, although it may have been acquired by T. Harrison Garrett in the 19th century. It is not included in the inventory of territorial and colonial coins that John Work Garrett purchased from Col. James Ellsworth in 1923. A grading event at the AU-58+ * level that still appears in the NGC Census is believed to refer to an earlier certification of this coin.

2 – NGC EF-45. Ex DeWitt Smith; Virgil Brand in 1908; Horace Brand; Robert Friedberg; Kreisberg-Schulman's Brand-Lichtenfels Collections sale, March 1964, lot 2211; our (Stack's) sale of the Gibson Collection, November 1974, lot 200; our (Stack's) sale of September 1981, lot 417; our (Stack's) sale of the Coles Collection, October 1983, lot 252; Pacific Coast Auction Galleries' Long Beach Sale of June 1987, lot 1813; Paul Padget; Stuart Levine and Donald Kagin; private collection.

3 – AU-50, per David McCarthy. Mint Cabinet; Smithsonian Institution.

4 – Grade Unknown. Ex Waldo Newcomer; possibly "Col." E.H.R. Green; Charles Williams; Willis duPont, acquired ca. 1951, per Walter Breen; stolen from the duPont Collection in 1967 and not yet recovered.

To read the complete article, see:
Legendary Garrett Collection 1849 Pacific Company $5 Gold Piece to Highlight the February 2025 Rarities Night Auction (https://stacksbowers.com/legendary-garrett-collection-1849-pacific-company-5-gold-piece-to-highlight-the-february-2025-rarities-night-auction/)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web