Couple Finds Out Their Gold Coin (1870-CC Liberty Head Double Eagle) Is Worth 6 Figures!

PCGS - We've all heard the stories from coin dealers of folks who bring coins into the shop for appraisal or sale only to tell them the pieces they delivered were worth far less than the owners hoped. Such situations happen virtually every day at coin shops around the country.

Yet, in a world where common 1940s and '50s Lincoln Wheat Cents and circulated 1921 Morgan dollars dominate transactions between coin dealers and their non-collector visitors, there is the occasional story in which both the dealer and the non-numismatist customer receive a mutually pleasant surprise.

That was certainly the case when an Ohio couple who had recently inherited a coin collection took a few $20 gold double eagles to Toledo Coin Exchange. Among them was an 1870-CC Liberty Head Double Eagle, a six-figure ultra-rarity with a mintage of only 3,789.



This coin, the rarest of all $20 double eagles from the Carson City Mint, is estimated to have approximately 41 survivors and none in uncirculated grades. Heritage Auctions sold a PCGS AU53 specimen in 2014 for $411,250.

The example that walked into Toledo Coin Exchange was recently graded by PCGS as a VF30, a grade point at which the handful of other similarly graded examples have traded for nearly $200,000.

It's certainly not the type of coin that Toledo Coin Exchange Vice President Nick Karpinski sees walk into his shop every day. "The couple brought in three $20 gold pieces," he recounts. "Our employee checked each coin, and when he saw the "CC," he pulled it aside." After verifying the authenticity of the coin and its six-figure market value, he sprang the good news on the unsuspecting couple, who were shocked. "The wife even said that we should grab a mop because she thinks she may have just urinated on the floor."

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