1860 $10 Clark, Gruber & Co. MS(PCGS#10137)

December 2025 Showcase Auction - The James A. Stack, Sr. Collection Part I

Auktionator

Stack's Bowers

Losnummer

22249

Erhaltungsgrad

XF40

Preis

21.600

Losbeschreibung

Warm hues of olive-gold wash over the boldly defined features, including the mountain at central obverse. Wisps of more vivid pinkish-rose iridescence are also present to further enhance the visual appeal as the coin rotates under lighting. The surfaces carry overall light wear to define the grade, along with scattered, generally minor marks from commercial use. The texture is curiously bright and a tad glossy, which features we note for accuracy, but they do not detract much from the overall pleasing appearance of this historic piece.<p>In the late 1850s, while the nation was still reeling from the effects of the disastrous Panic of 1857, gold was discovered in the Territory of Jefferson, attracting fortune seekers from all over. Many prospectors from the East Coast undertook the dangerous journey westward, passing through Leavenworth, Kansas where Austin and Milton Clark and merchant Emmanuel Gruber had set up a provisioning business. Reading about the gold finds and hearing the tales told by the prospective settlers, all three partners decided to establish a private banking and assay firm in what would soon be renamed Colorado. In 1860, the partners reached Denver and quickly set up the office of Clark, Gruber & Company, which was ready in July that same year to begin producing their gold coinage. The precious metal used to make Clark, Gruber & Co.'s $2.50, $5, and $10 gold pieces did not meet federal purity standards, so in order to compensate the firm deliberately made their coins overweight, to the point that the coins' intrinsic value exceeded stated face value by about 1%. The coins were eagerly accepted and soon Clark, Gruber & Co. became by far the largest and most important of the Colorado private coiners.<p>While the two smaller denominations resembled their federal counterparts, the obverses of both the 1860 $10 and 1860 $20 bore a distinctive if completely fanciful representation of Pike's Peak (which in no way resembles the actual mountain), the legend PIKE'S PEAK GOLD, and with DENVER below the base of the mountain, and finally beneath that the value TEN D. or TWENTY D. The $10 pieces were the first coins to be produced at the new private mint, an occasion that was recorded by the <em>Rocky Mountain News</em> on July 25, 1860, who were invited to watch the first coins come off the press. The issues proved successful and by October of 1860, some $120,000 worth in all had been struck. While short lived - the subsequent 1861 $10 and 1861 $20 bear designs that closely resemble contemporary U.S. Mint coinage to facilitate use - the Mountain design has since become synonymous with Colorado territorial coinage of all types. Survivors are eagerly sought in all grades, as such, and this 1860 $10 in NGC EF-40 will appeal to many advanced collectors.