1830 Templeton Reid Five Dollar Gold Piece

Coin Details

Auction Record

Description

This is Templeton Reid's 1830 five-dollar piece (Kagin K-2), dated and reading FIVE DOLLARS with his name as assayer. Templeton Reid, a silversmith and machinist from Milledgeville, moved to Gainesville, Georgia, in 1830 to run an assay office and that year struck gold pieces of two and a half, five and ten dollars (Georgia historical marker, search). They read GEORGIA GOLD on one side and TEMPLETON REID ASSAYER with the value on the other (Smithsonian, search). A letter signed No Assayer, printed in a Georgia paper in August 1830, claimed that a tested ten-dollar piece was worth only about $9.38 (search). The Mint's assayers Eckfeldt and Du Bois wrote that Reid's coins had reached the Mint in quantity twice, the last time in 1831; they recorded a ten-dollar piece at 248 grains and 942 thousandths fine and a quarter eagle at 60.5 grains and 932 fine, and had not tested the five (quoted by Dickeson, 1859). Greysheet describes it as the first half eagle coined privately in the United States and reports seven known, three of them in museums. Catalogue numbers: K-2. PCGS number 10323.

Rarity Notes

R-7 (Greysheet)

Cross References

K-2