This 1815 Half Eagle was the Best Value of Any Six-Figure Coin Sold at the 2023 ANA Auctions
/During many auctions, I keep a running text conversation with a long-time dealer friend. You’d pay a lot to read these as the commentary is free-wheeling to say the least.
We were both excited by the reappearance of the Garrett MS64 1815 half eagle. It was a coin which we both expected to reach—or perhaps crack—the $1 million dollar mark. The coin brought a slightly disappointing $720,000 which prompted the following exchange between me and Mystery Dealer (MD) right after the coin had sold:
Me: 1815 (half eagle) was cheap
MD: Rip of the sale…such a cool coin.
Me: I thought it would break 1 million.
MD: I thought around a million also. Epic coin in my opinion.
1815 $5.00 in PCGS MS64, courtesy of Stack's Bowers
Offered in Stack’s Bowers 2023 Rarities Night session as Lot 5125, the coin had been graded MS64 by PCGS. I’m going to assume that SB sent the coin to CAC and it didn’t receive a sticker. Personally, I was fine with the coin in a 64 holder although I felt that the true grade was MS63+. It is the second finest of just seven coins available to collectors. It has a fantastic pedigree going all the way back to 1875. To me, it checked every numismatic box:
It’s a regular issue in a series replete with rarities and mega-rarities
It’s really nice with excellent eye appeal
It’s a coin which has been recognized as a rarity as early as the 1860s.
There was some relevant price history which I thought clearly pointed towards the coin smashing its previous auction price record. The finest known, a PCGS MS65, brought $822,500 when it was sold as Pogue III: 3149. That was seven years ago and, in my experience nearly every early gold coin from the first three Pogue sales is worth more today. I’m going to estimate the Gem 1815 at $1,250,000+ if it were offered for sale at auction tomorrow.
Surprisingly, another 1815 had sold more recently: the Bass Core Collection II: 9040 coin which was graded MS62 and which sold for $480,000 in January 2023. I graded that coin AU58.
Armed with this pricing information (a slider 1815 is worth around $500k, while a nice MS64/MS65 is worth an estimated $1,250,000+) the Garrett coin should be worth at least midway between the slider and the borderline Gem. Adding the two valuations together we get $1,750,000 and dividing this number in half we come up with a minimum value of $875,000. But we aren’t done yet. There’s the “coolness factor” of this coin which could easily add another 10%-20% to the hammer price. At a 10% premium, this gets us to $962,500 while at a 20% “coolness premium” we come up to $1,050,000; which is exactly what I think this coin is worth.
Had I been better prepared for this, I might have made a run at the Garrett 1815 half eagle; either for stock or—more likely—to put away for a few years and to add my name to the illustrious list of former owners of this Classic Rarity.
Are you interested in acquiring important US Classic Rarities such as the 1815 half eagle for our collection or portfolio? Contact Doug Winter at (214) 675-9897 to discuss strategy.
