Mormon Gold (Utah) (1849-1860)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began to strike gold pieces at Salt Lake City late in 1848 from gold brought from California; Wikipedia says the first came from Mormon Island, and Greysheet dates the ten-dollar pieces to December 12 and 19, 1848, though they bear the date 1849. The coinage of 1849 ran to four values, two and a half, five, ten and twenty dollars, and Greysheet calls the twenty the first coin of that value struck in the United States.

When the first pieces reached the Philadelphia Mint, its assayers found them about 899 thousandths fine and well short of their stated weights, so that a twenty-dollar piece held under $17.53 in gold. A five-dollar piece followed in 1850 with new dies, and a last five-dollar piece in 1860 with new designs. Wikipedia reports that the territorial governor, Alfred Cumming, ordered the coining stopped in 1861.

Long after the coins, uniface impressions of the dies were struck in copper and other metals; Kagin connected some with the fiftieth anniversary of the first coinage, in 1898.

The 1849 pieces show an eye beneath a cap with HOLINESS TO THE LORD on one side and two clasped hands with the date, the value and the initials G.S.L.C.P.G., for Great Salt Lake City Pure Gold, on the other; the ten-dollar piece spells out PURE GOLD. The 1850 five-dollar piece adds nine stars around the eye. The 1860 piece has a lion with the motto in the Deseret alphabet and an eagle over a beehive with DESERET ASSAY OFFICE PURE GOLD. Kagin numbers the gold coins K-1 to K-6.

The later impressions are in copper, lead, brass or gilt silver and usually show one side only, with plain or reeded edges. NGC lists them under Kagin's restrike numbers, from K-1 for the lead impressions of the two-and-a-half dollar die to K-10a for the 1860 lead impressions.

The gold coins. The 1849 two-and-a-half dollar (K-1), five-dollar (K-2), ten-dollar (K-3) and twenty-dollar (K-4) pieces, the 1850 five-dollar piece (K-5) and the 1860 lion and beehive five (K-6).

Later impressions. From the 1849 dies: lead impressions of the two-and-a-half dollar die with a plain or reeded edge and a copper one; copper impressions of the five-dollar die with a plain or reeded edge; and copper impressions of the ten-dollar and twenty-dollar dies, with the undated sides of the ten and twenty. From the 1850 dies: the dated side in copper (K-7) and the undated side (K-7a). From the 1860 dies: copper impressions of the dated side (K-8) and the other (K-8a), a two-sided copper striking (K-8b), brass and gilt silver impressions (K-8c) and lead impressions of both sides (K-10, K-10a).

The coins are of unrefined California gold alloyed only with its natural silver, about 886 to 899 thousandths fine in the Mint's tests, and light for their values: the Mint recorded about 58 grains for the two-and-a-half dollar piece, about 111 for the five, 219 to 224 for the ten and 436 to 453 for the twenty. Because weights varied from piece to piece, the catalog pages give no standard weight. Greysheet reports figures for the numbers struck, from 46 ten-dollar pieces to 5,500 five-dollar pieces of 1849, but no second source confirms them, so the pages carry no mintages. The later impressions are copper, lead, brass or gilt silver.