1849 Massachusetts & California Company Five Dollar - Silver Fantasy

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Description

This is a silver piece in the 1849 Massachusetts & California Company five-dollar design, catalogued by PCGS as a fantasy. The Massachusetts and California Company was organized at Northampton, Massachusetts early in 1849, with Josiah Hayden as president, the Rev. F. P. Tracy as its agent and William H. Hayden as assayer, and planned to coin gold in California. Its five-dollar design shows a shield with a mounted vaquero, held by a bear and a stag above a ribbon reading ALTA, and a wreath around FIVE D. with the company name and 1849. Adams thought the few gold pieces were trial strikings, alloyed with copper unlike most California gold, and that the silver and copper pieces were made in the East. PCGS catalogues it as a fantasy, a later piece in the company's design rather than one of the 1849 trial strikings Adams describes. PCGS number 10231.