1852-O $20.00 NGC AU58 CAC

I'm going to go out on a limb here and state that this coin is one of the single finest AU58 New Orleans double eagles of any date that I have ever seen. In arecent auction appearance it set an all-time record price for an AU58 1852-O (more on this below) and with good reason: it is absolutely stunning. In the very same sale in which this appeared,there was an 1852-O double eagle graded MS65 by NGC. While that coin was certainly incredible, I'd personally rather have this coin at one-fourteenth of the price and use the leftover funds to acquire other neat coins. Before this coin recently surfaced, it had been off the market for at least two decades as part of the Henry Miller collection. It has the naked-eye appearance of an MS62 to MS63 with superb deep original orange-gold color, semi-prooflike surfaces and a virtual absence of marks. There is just one small little area of rub on the obverse and since it is located on the cheek of Liberty, it is more obvious to the eye than if it were, say, in the fields. Interestingly, the buyer of this coin in the Miller sale was one of the sharpest wholesale "breakout" dealers that I know and, as he told me when I was buying this coin from recently, this is exactly the sort of coin that NGC (and PCGS) have called MS61 (or finer) in the recent past. The new owner of this coin can count on having one of the most attractive New Orleans double eagles known--of any date or in any grade!

Ex Heritage 1/11: 5242 where it sold for $19,550. Previously, it was in the Henry Miller collection and it was probably obtained sometime before 1980.