Bechtler (North Carolina/Georgia) Gold (1831-1850)

Christopher Bechtler. Christopher Bechtler was a goldsmith and watchmaker from Pforzheim in Baden. He came to the United States in 1829 with his sons and a nephew, worked briefly in Philadelphia and moved to the North Carolina gold country, where he set up a private mint in Rutherford County; Greysheet dates his first coins to June 1831. He struck gold dollars, quarter eagles and five-dollar pieces from the gold the miners brought him, and his coins passed in trade across the South and West. Greysheet describes his 30-grain dollar of about 1832-1834 as the earliest gold dollar coined in the United States, years before the federal Mint made one.

The Mint's view. Jacob Eckfeldt and William Du Bois, the Philadelphia Mint's assayers, tested Bechtler coins over many years. They found the C. Bechtler five-dollar pieces between one and six percent short of their stated value, three percent on average, and noted that the coins were often sent to the Mint for recoining.

August Bechtler. The coins later carried the name A. BECHTLER, for Christopher's son August (Augustus); Christopher died in 1843. August kept the three grades of fineness for his five-dollar pieces and struck a 27-grain dollar of 21 carats. The Mint found his half eagles between full value and one and a half percent short.

Chapman's strikings. Long after the mint closed, the Philadelphia dealer Henry Chapman obtained three Bechtler half eagle dies and had proof gold pieces struck from them at the Philadelphia Mint.

Bechtler coins name the maker and state the weight in grains (G) and the fineness in carats (C), and the place, RUTHERFORD or RUTHERF:. They carry no year of issue except the AUGUST 1. 1834. on many five-dollar dies, which marks the new federal standard of that date and stayed on the dies for years.

The standard. Pieces made before the change follow the old federal weights: 150 grains of 20-carat gold for five dollars, 75 grains for the quarter eagle and 30 grains for the dollar. After it, Bechtler used 140 grains at 20 carats, 134 at 21 or 128 at 22 for five dollars, 70, 67 or 64 grains for the quarter eagle and 28 grains for the dollar. The legends name the grades: NORTH CAROLINA GOLD or CAROLINA GOLD on most pieces, GEORGIA GOLD on Christopher's 22-carat pieces.

Varieties. Collectors use Donald Kagin's numbers: K-1 to K-4 for C. Bechtler dollars, K-5 to K-13 for quarter eagles, K-14 to K-23 for five-dollar pieces, K-24 to K-29 for A. Bechtler, and K-30 and K-31 for the Chapman pieces. Within a value the dies differ in the place of the weight, colons and stars, a beaded or plain border, spelled or shortened RUTHERFORD, and reeded or plain edges. The dates the catalog uses in its titles are the opening years of PCGS's date ranges, not dates on the coins.

Gold dollars. C. Bechtler's 30-grain dollar of the old standard (K-1); the 28-grain dollars with the weight set high (K-2) or centred (K-3); the reversed N die (K-4); and August's 27-grain dollar with a plain (K-24) or reeded (K-25) edge.

Quarter eagles. The beaded border pieces of 1831-1832, with fine or coarse beads and no weight (K-5, K-6), the NORTH CAROLINA GOLD die (K-7) and the 75.G. beaded piece (K-8); the 75-grain piece with a star (K-9); and the small quarter eagles of 67 grains (K-10), 64 grains with an uneven 22 (K-11) or even 22 (K-12) and 70 grains (K-13).

Five-dollar pieces of Christopher Bechtler. The beaded border pieces without (K-14) and with 150.G. (K-15); the 140-grain pieces with the dated obverse, from the unique transitional piece without initial or star, through the C: Bechtler reeded and plain edge pieces, the RUTHERFORD reverse with a plain or reeded edge (K-17, K-17a), the RUTHERF: reverse (K-18) and the distant 20 (K-19); the 134-grain piece with a star (K-20); and the GEORGIA GOLD pieces of 128 grains, with colons (K-21), without (K-22) and with RUTHERF: (K-23).

Five-dollar pieces of August Bechtler. The 134-grain, 21-carat (K-27), 128-grain, 22-carat (K-28) and 141-grain, 20-carat (K-29) pieces, and the mule of an A. Bechtler obverse with a C. Bechtler reverse (K-26).

Chapman's proofs. The A. Bechtler pairing (K-30), a restrike of K-29, and the A. Bechtler obverse with the C. Bechtler reverse (K-31), a pairing the Bechtlers never struck.

The coins are of native gold alloyed with the silver it carried, which Eckfeldt and Du Bois noted would raise their value slightly when the silver was parted in large lots. The carat legends give the intended fineness: 20 carats is about 833 thousandths, 21 carats about 875 and 22 carats about 917. A five-dollar piece of 140 grains at 20 carats, 134 at 21 or 128 at 22 was meant to hold about the same weight of pure gold. No record of the numbers struck survives in the sources used here, so the pages carry no mintage figures.