Variety 20A, Spiked Shield. Original gold label, SSCA #2951.

The discovery of thousands of choice and gem 1857-S double eagles as part of the famous SS Central America treasure forever changed the hobby of coin collecting. These big, beautiful coins made Type One Liberty Head double eagles the most popular area of US gold collecting and turned hundreds of collectors from dabblers into aficionados.

This is an extremely high end example for the grade with very nice even golden color framed by slightly deeper hues at the rims. The luster is exceptional and the surfaces are clean enough to strongly suggest a higher grade. I have owned numerous MS64 examples of this date and this is among the finest.

SSCA 1857-S double eagles in this grade with CAC approval and gold labels typically sell in the $10,000-11,000 range.

This extremely attractive example is well-priced, has all the “bells and whistles” (except for the original box and COA) and is clearly very high end for the grade.

CAC has approved 16 examples of this variety in MS64 with 23 finer.