Is This 1888 $1 Gold Coin Worth Bidding $80+ On?

Money on something else

If your looking for a cheap hole filler, you might not see another that low of a price for a while despite its garbage looking condition

Dont buy it unless you actually want it, a bargqin isint enough of a reason in that case, in my opinion

I doubt a dealer would pay you even melt value for it.

It is only worth melt, and probably not even that.

What a thing might go for in an auction, and what you can get for something when YOU try to sell it are two different things. I view this coin as a "burial" at any price much above melt.

I have put together a "short set" of gold dollars from 1880 to 1889. The coins grade from MS-63 to PR-65. The MS-63 cost less than half the price of any of the others, but it fit in well with them. You should look for something similar to that rather than buying a really ugly problem coin like this one. I am not aware of a bunch of collectors beating down the doors to buy gold dollars with major problems. Most gold collectors are fussy when it comes to grades.

Sometimes silver test solution works, sometimes it doesn't. Here's my 1860-S dollar solder removal project.



It was worse when I started. There was a post over the date that came off. But the solution didn't remove some underlying gold solder.

The 1888 gold dollar is not that rare. It's one of the more common dates in the 1880s with an estimated 2,000 survivors. Among those 1,900 are in MS-60 or better.

The late date gold dollars had two sets of customers, coin collectors and hoarders who kept them because of the low mintages and jewlers who used them to make decorative pieces. That's why problem coins like this are not unusual.