PCGS Rare Coin Market Report

Pioneer gold of Great Salt Lake City, the only 1850-dated Mormon issue and the last struck from California dust. The Saints reached the valley in 1847 with almost no coin. Battalion veterans and others brought gold from the 1848–49 rush; the Deseret Mint answered with 1849 quarter eagles, half eagles, eagles, and double eagles. In March 1850 Brigham Young ordered new dies. This five keeps the all-seeing eye but replaces the mitre with a crown and halo and nine stars; the clasped hands on the reverse are recut with finer detail. Around: G.S.L.C.P.G.—Great Salt Lake City Pure Gold—and FIVE DOLLARS. About 4,000 were struck, some into 1851. A Philadelphia assay that year found them underweight and only about .800 fine. Outside Utah they were discounted and melted; perhaps 50 to 75 survive in private hands. Soft strike is the rule. Rarer than the 1849 $5.

This PCGS VF-20 is a seldom-offered, eminently collectible grade for the type. Deep tan-honey surfaces pick up powder-blue and pinkish-rose iridescence as the coin turns. Detail is soft to missing at upper right obverse and lower right reverse; wear is otherwise even, the date a bit faint, the remaining devices discernible to bold. No significant marks interrupt the originality. From the Warwick Collection, assembled from the 1930s through the 1960s—an original Mormon five with a documented old-time pedigree.