1849 Oregon Exchange Company Five Dollar

Coin Details

Auction Record

Description

This is the 1849 Oregon Exchange Company five-dollar piece (Kagin K-1), struck at Oregon City. Early in 1849 Oregon's provisional legislature approved a mint, and when the new territorial governor, Joseph Lane, held such a mint to be unlawful, eight men formed the Oregon Exchange Company and struck five- and ten-dollar pieces at Oregon City from gold brought from California (Wikipedia; E-Sylum, after Kagin). One side shows a beaver over the initials of the company's men and T.O., the letters of Oregon Territory transposed; the other names the company and states the weight of native gold, 130 grains for the five and 260 for the ten (Eckfeldt and Du Bois; Smithsonian, search). The Mint's assayers weighed one five-dollar piece at 127.5 grains, found it 878 thousandths fine with no alloy added, and valued it at $4.82 (Eckfeldt and Du Bois, 1850). Its reverse reads OREGON EXCHANGE COMPANY, 130 G. NATIVE GOLD (Smithsonian, search). An Associated Press report quoting Kagin put the number struck at 6,000 (E-Sylum), and Wikipedia gives an estimate of 8,850 coins of both values; neither figure comes from a record of the company. Catalogue numbers: K-1. PCGS number 10288.

Cross References

K-1