Advice On Gold Coin Purchase

From the Wiki article on the Comstock Lode: The Crown Point-Belcher bonanza was discovered in 1870. The ore body extended from the 900 to the 1,500-foot level (275 to 460 m), having a length of 775 feet (236 m) and a width of 120 feet (37 m). The ore, the precious metal value of which was 54 percent from gold and 46 percent from silver, lasted only four years.

'The total production of ore extracted and milled in the Comstock District, 1860 to June 30, 1880, was 6,971,641 tons, 640 pounds. Peak production from the Comstock occurred in 1877, with the mines producing over $14,000,000 of gold and $21,000,000 of silver that year (about $329,393,750 and $494,090,625 today).

The Comstock Lode was both silver & gold. When first found, the placer gold miners from the 1849 California gold rush were only looking for the yellow of surface gold & discarded huge quantities of a bluish material that, when later assayed, turned out to be silver sulfide (Ag(sub2)S). This is a naturally occurring mineral form of the dark coloration that you clean off silver ware.

I'm new here & can't figure out how to upload the pix of my new coins. Please let me know how. Thanks!

As a new collector I say just keep away from Gold for now.

It's unlikely that the Comstock gold ended up in the later cc planchets, but it was probably Western gold. Carson had a lot of issues, not the least of which were corruption and the proximity of SF. The assay office stayed open for years after, as did offices in places like Boise.

Granted, the photo upload is tedious Jacks. Even when you get used to its foibles. But they can't load up on giant picture files here.

That hot blue mud is what made Comstock mining dangerous. The lodes weren't composed of solid quartz and granite, and they sloped steeply. The stoped timbering system developed to keep them from collapsing was clever and allowed the companies to mine then out very fast. The hills around Lake Tahoe were stripped of their big Ponderosa pine for timbers, which were flumed down to the Washoe Valley, then hauled up to Virginia City by the V&T Railroad.

Interesting article. Re my 1890-CC-1893-CC coins: 'Several years of production saw anemically low mintage totals, including 1870's 5,908 pieces, 1872's 5,500 pieces (some sources report 4,600), 1873's 4,543 pieces, 1876's 4,696 pieces, 1877's 3,332 pieces, 1878's 3,244 pieces, and 1879's stunted output of 1,762 pieces.

Just like in the half eagle series, 1891 saw the highest production of gold eagles at the Carson City Mint, with its 103,732 coins.

Again, according to Rusty Goe, survival totals are small for "CC" gold eagles. He estimates that no more than 3.22% of the original mintage total survives today, with the percentage probably under the 3.2% mark. This translates into a surviving population of no more than 9,655 pieces spanning 19 dates in the eagle series, with the actual total probably less. The 1891-CC date, according to Goe, accounts for as much as 46% of the entire population of "CC" gold eagles, which reveals just how rare most of the other dates are in this series.'

This ca 1859 high grade ore sample from the Ophir mine shows what they were mining in the Comstock.

http://www.marshallmint.com/index.p...oduct_id=268

A mix of crumbly blue argentite, quartz and gold flakes. A pretty spendy little rock...I prefer coins....

I received an MS64 1906 $2.50 which I sold to Coast & Coins for $400 ($75 less that I paid for it). In return I picked up an 1856-S $10 VF35 for $725 net. The SF mint started up in 1854 so I'm attracted to early SF coinage. I think I got a good deal. Should have it by Friday when I've scheduled my next visit to the safety deposit box.

They will quote on coins even in flips or 2x2s so I'm looking to do a physical inventory & send them the ones (Philadelphia) that I didn't sell earlier this year on ebay.