Rare Gold Coins

[Cleetus]

These are two very nice gold coins. 1849 and a 1850, $5 Dollar Mormon Gold pieces. I prefer the 1850 design. Just thought everyone might enjoy seeing them. I believe their auction prices are in the hundreds of thousands, but there's still a few in the ground somewhere for free.

[DigginThePast]

Those are really cool and truly rare pieces.

Thanks for posting.

[pennyfarmer]

The last one that I heard was found in Park City. Problem was that the gold content of Mormon gold was not very good so many got melted down. They were often discounted when someone tried to use them.

[Tuberale]

A friend in a MD club I used to belong to found 2 of those in southern Utah, after researching nearly 2 years. Yup, still available. But REALLY rare.

[U.K. Brian]

G.S.L.C.P.G. stood for Great Salt Lake Pure Gold though the gold came from California and the coins were underweight and used debased metal which is not what you would have expected from Mormons.

[TheRockDoc]

Those are amazing coins, just seeing the picture makes me wonder all sorts of amazing things.... Thanks for sharing.

I have a question for you Cleetus, Tuberale, or whoever else could possibly answer it... I am in Salt Lake City, I purchased a new Etrac in Sep. I do not have any friends who detect (yet). Is there somewhere I could join? A club, or group of people of likeminded interests here in Utah? I need to get out and really put this baby to work. I have only spent a few hours detecting... I absolutely love it, and on my 2nd day, I found my first silver... a 1964 quarter.

Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Thanks, happy hunting.


Chris.

[pennyfarmer]

If you are in SLC then contact Jeral at J&J metal detectors in Sandy or Bob Campbell at All About coins in Sugar House. Either shop can get you info on the clubs in SLC.

[TheRockDoc]

Thanks pennyfarmer,

Hey Im just gonna throw this out there in case anyone is interested. I am a newbie to Md'ing, and as mentioned I bought an etrac in september. I am wondering if there is anyone in salt lake city or within 100miles who has an etrac, who would be willing to spend a few hours with me in the field kind of mentoring me on this machine so to speak. I would be more than willing to pay a fair price for your time spent.

Let me know if so....

Thanks.

[Lanny in AB]

Got this off a website: Composition: 1849-50 gold 866 Fine; 1860 $5.00 917 Fine.

They weren't pure gold, but that's not trash amounts of gold either. I've heard they didn't have a refinery to get any higher purity--maybe someone knows more about this. Regardless, gorgeous coins that are incredibly rare as there were so few minted.

All the best,

Lanny

[pennyfarmer]

Got this off a website: Composition: 1849-50 gold 866 Fine; 1860 $5.00 917 Fine.

They weren't pure gold, but that's not trash amounts of gold either. I've heard they didn't have a refinery to get any higher purity--maybe someone knows more about this. Regardless, gorgeous coins that are incredibly rare as there were so few minted.

All the best,

Lanny

Early Mormon leaders were not known for their metallurgical prowess. They imagined that gold from the ground was pure gold. The gold they were using was straight from California although many accounts say that the gold was from the lost Rhoads mines in the Uintah mountains. They knew enough that American gold coins were alloys and they figured that since their coins were minted from "pure gold" they could reduce the weight from what the U.S. mint was using.

At that time there was a money shortage and there were several private mints in the country producing gold coins. Many of these coins were underweight and lacked the "advertised" gold content. It was such a problem that someone came out with a report of all the gold coins produced by these private mints. The Mormon gold came up pretty short and was quickly discounted by anyone willing to accept them. This is one of the main reasons that they are so rare.

This money shortage thing was a huge issue in Utah at that time. They were doing trade with people stopping through. One of their solutions at first was to take this gold they were getting and weighting it out and sewing it up into little baggies with a tag that stated how much gold was in it. That didn't take long for people to steal the gold from the bags and replace it with other crap like lead and such. That is when they decided to mint their own coins. The Mormons were also printing money which were called white notes.