Two Below the Radar Sales Records From the Heritage 2026 GACC Auction

Are you ready for the Day of the $20,000 PCGS/CAC common date AU58 Charlotte or Dahlonega half eagle? If we can make such a bold statement using an extremely small sample size from the October 8th GACC Platinum Night session, I would say that as of late 2026, that day is here.

The Christensen Family Collection, sourced primarily from DWN in 2024-2026, was strong in New Orleans, Philadelphia, and San Francisco eagles and double eagles. This collector never cared that much about C+D mint, and his collection had only one coin from each of these two Southern mints.

Based on the following auction results, he would have been wise to have been a lot more active on the C+D mint front.

1848-C $5.00 PCGS AU58 CAC, image courtesy of heritage

Lot 3476 was a nice PCGS/CAC 1848-C in AU58. Solid for the grade and looking about 90% original, this was a coin begging to be included in a better quality seven-mint set of Liberty Head half eagles (click here for DWN article). It was sold in January, 2024 by me directly to the collector for $9,500; at the Heritage sale it brought $18,910. I am pretty certain that this is a record price for any common date Charlotte half eagle in non-upgradable AU58. 

1859-D Medium D $5.00 PCGS AU58+, image courtesy of heritage

Lot 3478 was a PCGS/CAC AU58+ 1859-D. This is a coin that I first handled in 2016 and I sold it for $6,000. I sold it again in 2019 for $7,500, and yet again in 2024 for $13,000. This was followed by two auction sales: one in 2024 for $13,200; the other in 2025 for $19,200. Two short years later it sold for $23,180. Do I think the coin is a legit 58+? Probably not, and I continue to view most pre-1900 US gold coins with a “+” enhancement with some degree of skepticism when it comes to their “plus-worthiness.”

Side note 1: With six different sales in the last decade, the velocity of transactions for this desirable coin seems unusually brisk for what is a pretty cool D mint $5. There is nothing wrong with this coin (five different people didn’t discover that the coin had a “spot removed” or that the color was off; it was just a coin which has traded a bunch). Hopefully the new owner will keep it around long enough for it to overcome its current propensity for short-holds.

As I said in the beginning of this blog, two coins sold does not a market make. But I’m afraid that nice C+D mint gold—especially if the coin is aesthetically pleasing and it is PCGS/CAC and to a lesser degree if it is NGC/CAC—is going up as fast as the current price of diesel fuel.

Side note 2: Who exactly is paying $19k for a common date C mint $5 in AU58, and $23k for a unspectacular D mint $5 in 58+? If I had owned these exact two coins, I would have likely been at 14,000/16,000 buy/sell on the former and at 17,000/19,000 on the latter. Where are buyers coming up with these numbers, and how did a decent PCGS/CAC C or D mint five go up from 9k to double this number in less than two to three years? Any hints would be much appreciated.