Oregon Gold (1849)

History

Settlers in Oregon's Willamette Valley had little coin in the 1840s and traded in skins, wheat and foreign money. When gold dust began to flow north from California in 1848 and 1849, disputes over its value were common. Early in 1849 the provisional legislature approved a mint, but the new territorial governor, Joseph Lane, held that coining money belonged to Congress. A group of eight men formed the Oregon Exchange Company and struck the coins privately at Oregon City, on machinery William Rector built; Wikipedia gives the opening date as March 10, 1849.

The company struck five- and ten-dollar pieces from native gold without refining or alloying it. The Philadelphia Mint's assayers, Jacob Eckfeldt and William Du Bois, examined one five-dollar piece in 1850: it weighed 127.5 grains against the 130 it claimed, was 878 thousandths fine and held $4.82 in gold at the Mint's rates. They found the coins poorly struck but liked the beaver. How many were made is not recorded: an Associated Press report quoting Donald Kagin gave 6,000 five-dollar pieces, and Wikipedia cites an estimate of 8,850 coins of both values.

How to Identify It

One side shows a beaver, the initials of the company's men and T.O., with the date 1849; the other names the OREGON EXCHANGE COMPANY and states the weight of native gold, 130 G. on the five and 260 on the ten, with the value. Kagin numbers the five K-1 and the ten K-2. The later strikings repeat the designs in other metals; PCGS lists them as restrikes and records the weights of the white metal pieces, which vary.

Key Types and Varieties

The 1849 coins. The five-dollar piece (K-1) and the ten-dollar piece (K-2).

Later strikings. Of the five-dollar design: in gold, on rolled gold, in copper and in white metal of 6.42 and 6.61 grams. Of the ten-dollar design: in gold and in white metal of 10.89 and 9.33 grams. The sources used here do not say who made them; the original dies are held by the Oregon Historical Society, and a mining association in eastern Oregon later offered gold reproductions of the five-dollar piece.

Composition and Gold Content

The coins are of unrefined California gold, carrying only the silver natural to it: the five-dollar piece the Mint tested was 878 thousandths fine. The legends state 130 and 260 grains, about 8.42 and 16.85 grams, which the catalog pages give as their weights. The later strikings are gold, rolled gold, copper or white metal, as their pages say.

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FAQ

Why is it called beaver money?

Both coins of the Oregon Exchange Company show a beaver on one side, and in Oregon they were known as beaver money. Eckfeldt and Du Bois of the Philadelphia Mint called the beaver a good emblem of mining industry and of Western life. Beaver skins had themselves served as a medium of exchange in the Oregon settlements before the gold arrived.

What do the letters on the beaver side mean?

They are the initials of the men of the Oregon Exchange Company, K.M.T.A.W.R.G.S. on the five-dollar piece, with T.O. for Oregon Territory. The E-Sylum, reporting Donald Kagin, notes two errors in the dies, T.O. for O.T. and a G in place of the C for John Gill Campbell.

Was the Oregon coinage legal?

Oregon's provisional legislature approved a mint early in 1849, but the territorial governor, Joseph Lane, who arrived in March, regarded a mint as beyond its powers, since the Constitution gives coinage to Congress. The Oregon Exchange Company struck the coins privately all the same, and Wikipedia reports that Lane struck down the coinage law in September 1849.

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