1861 Clark, Gruber & Co. Twenty Dollar - White Metal

Coin Details

Description

This is a white metal striking from the dies of the 1861 Clark, Gruber & Co. twenty-dollar piece, as PCGS lists it. Austin M. Clark, Milton E. Clark and Emanuel H. Gruber ran a brokerage firm in Leavenworth, Kansas, and opened an office in Denver during the Pikes Peak gold rush. To save the cost of shipping gold dust east they opened a mint in a two-story brick building at Market and 16th Streets on July 25, 1860, first striking ten-dollar pieces showing a mountain with PIKES PEAK GOLD and DENVER, and soon twenty-, five- and two-and-a-half-dollar pieces. Over almost three years they coined $594,305 in gold, and in April 1863 the Treasury bought the building, which became a United States Assay Office. It is a die trial, struck from Clark, Gruber & Co. dies in a base metal, not one of the gold coins. NGC lists white metal twenty-dollar pieces under K-12 and K-12f. PCGS number 966115.