1855 Proof California Gold $50 - $50 Kellogg & Co.

Coin Details

Auction Record

Description

This is the 1855 Kellogg & Co. fifty-dollar gold piece, struck in proof. 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. The 1855 fifty-dollar piece is round, with a Liberty head signed F. GRUNER for the San Francisco die cutter Ferdinand Gruner and an eagle holding a shield, with 1309 GRS. 887 THOUS. on a label. Adams found no newspaper notice of it and thought the issue went little beyond trial pieces. Catalogue number: K-4. PCGS number 10228.

Cross References

K-4