1848 Liberty Head Eagle. MS-62 (PCGS). CAC.

Delightful golden-olive surfaces present a bold strike and soft, impressively smooth satin luster. When David Akers wrote his important studies on federal gold coins, published in 1980, he noted five appearances of coins called "Uncirculated," some of which could have been the same piece. He also wrote about the date, "Most known specimens are only VF or EF and strictly uncirculated examples are extremely rare." This summed the situation up perfectly, as a scanning of auction appearances confirms. What may be most remarkable about the 1848 in this grade is the list of collections that had far inferior examples, or none at all. The lead among these is the Eliasberg Collection, which contained only an "EF-40." The Garrett family, Virgil Brand, and the Norweb family also failed to acquire anything noteworthy for this date, illustrative of just how difficult it is to find. Harry W. Bass, Jr., the most aggressive student and collector of federal gold of our time, did find a lovely example graded MS-63 by PCGS from our sale of the exceptional James A. Stack Collection in 1994. The fabulous Bass coin has been resubmitted to PCGS in more recent times, but remains in a PCGS MS-63 holder, perhaps slightly skewing the population data for the issue. Among the finest verified by CAC, the Fairmont Collection specimen offered here certainly stands tall among 1848 eagles available for today's gold enthusiasts.

PCGS# 8599. NGC ID: 2633.

PCGS Population: 2; 9 finer (MS-64 finest). CAC Population: 2; 3.

From the Fairmont Collection-Hendricks Set.

Estimate: $ 12000