A beautiful coin, with deep golden color and a hint of the lime green patina that often appears on gold coins after decades of storage in a kraft envelope. Which is exactly how this coin sat for the last 73 years, since it was plucked out of the "river of gold" that came through a major bank in the Southern US after President Franklin Roosevelt confiscated gold from the citizenry back in 1933.

From a paltry mintage of 35,400, this example is superior to the finest specimen in the Smithsonian collection (graded MS60, according to Jeff Garret and Ron Guth’s new masterwork on US gold coinage).

The Karl Stecher Sr. Story

All we know about Karl Stecher Sr. (1891-1965) comes to us from the Heritage Auction catalog #432 where his collection was sold. We quote from the front of that catalog as follows:

"All of the coins in Mr. Stecher’s collection were acquired between 1933 and 1941, and remained in their original envelopes until some were submitted to PCGS in October, 2006.

Parts of his collection were purchased from major coin dealers (of that time). Additionally, many of the gold coins offered in this auction were obtained through marvelous circumstances that existed for Mr. Stecher while he was a law professor at Emory University in Macon, Georgia from 1928-1934. President Franklin Roosevelt’s Emergency Banking Relief Act (Order #6102, March 9, 1933) ordered the public to turn in their ‘non-collector’ gold coins; naturally many rare coins suffered a similar fate. Mrs. Stecher’s uncle, Thomas W. Smith, had enjoyed a lifelong banking career starting in 1909 that culminated in responsibility for the Atlanta ‘gold room’ of the Citizen’s and Southern Bank. All of the gold that flowed through the bank’s branches in response to President Roosevelt’s decree passed through Mr. Smith’s office, and Mr. Stecher was allowed to select numismatic items from the river of gold, paying face value for numismatic coins he selected."

At CRO, we scour the market for "untouched" and "unconserved" rare US coins exactly like these, and so this auction was especially interesting to us. We were able to select our favorite pieces from a plethora of gold coins that sat untouched since the 1930’s, and now you can be the beneficiary of this fortunate circumstance.

SOLD

To order or inquire about this item, call us at 1-800-Coins-99 or email us at John@CoinRaritiesOnline.com or complete the form at the bottom of this page.