1850 $5 Baldwin & Co. MS61 Certification #05713498, PCGS #10025

Ron Guth

In 1850, George C. Baldwin and Thomas S. Holman formed Baldwin & Co. and purchased the coining operation of F.D. Kohler & Co.  Baldwin & Co.'s first issues were $5 and $10 gold coins dated 1850.  In 1851, Baldwin & Co. issued $10 and $20 gold coins.  Unfortunately, an official assay revealed that Baldwin's coins contained less gold than their stated value, and all confidence in their coins disappeared (this was not an unusual circumstance, as most of the other private assayers suffered the same fate).

The 1850 Baldwin & Co. $5 gold piece is very rare, primarily because most were melted down in later years because of the public's refusal to accept them.  All examples appear to have been made from the same dies, which can be identified by an inverted A underneath the final A in CALIFORNIA on the reverse (Kagin claimed mistakenly that inverted A;s appeared beneath BOTH A's in CALIFORNIA).  Late states of the dies show several cracks, one of which results eventually in a triangular cud at the upper right obverse edge.

Mint State examples are extremely rare, led by a remarkable NGC MS64.