1851 $50 California Gold Quintuple Eagle - Augustus Humbert 887 Thous. RE NGC XF45

This is a classic rarity from the early days of the California Gold Rush.

The year 1851 saw the United States Assay Office of Gold in San Francisco struck $50 slugs marked '887 THOUS' (referring to the fineness of the gold). There have been 116 in total of the 1851 '877 THOUS' graded by NGC. Of those, there are 14 that carry the grade of XF45, with 72 finer.

It was in the year 1851 that Augustus Humbert was appointed to the job of United States Assayer in California. The same year he created a provisional government mint, the United States Assay Office of Gold, in order to fulfill the commercial needs of the people of California. In 1851 and 1852, Humbert minted $50 gold slugs that were accepted at par with legal tender Federal-issued coinage.

Advertisement about sailing to California, circa 1850.

In PCGS Coinfacts Ron Guth writes, "The $50 gold pieces issued by the United States Assay Office of Gold in San Francisco in the early 1850's were not actually coins per se. Rather, they were called 'ingots' at the time; today, we know them as 'Slugs.' Their real value, besides that stated on their face, was in standardizing the jumble of over-valued, underweight, and off-purity private issues prevalent at the time. Nowadays, the $50 slugs are among the most popular of all California gold pieces."