1855 Proof California Gold $50 - 1855' $50 Kellogg - Original Dies Restrike S.S. Central America

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This is a proof restrike of the Kellogg & Co. fifty-dollar piece in S.S. Central America gold that PCGS lists as struck from the original dies. When the U.S. Assay Office closed on December 14, 1853, its cashier John Glover Kellogg and assayer G. F. Richter opened their own office at 106 Montgomery Street. San Francisco bankers asked them in January 1854 to coin, and their first twenty-dollar pieces came out on February 9, 1854, a close copy of the federal double eagle with KELLOGG & CO. on the coronet. Late in 1854 Augustus Humbert took Richter's place in the firm, which coined heavily into 1855 and then stopped. PCGS separates these pieces from the commemorative restrikes struck from transfer dies; dealers describe them as lacking the C.H.S. inscription (search). In August 2001 the California Gold Marketing Group and the California Historical Society struck commemorative pieces in the Kellogg design at the Presidio in San Francisco, in gold recovered from the wreck of the S.S. Central America, using transfer dies the Gallery Mint made from the original Kellogg dies. The ribbon, blank on the 1855 coin, reads S.S. CENTRAL AMERICA GOLD / C.H.S., each piece carries a punched striking date, and the issue was limited to 5,000 (ANA). PCGS number 812033.