1852 $50 California Gold Quintuple Eagle - Augustus Humbert 887 Thous. RE NGC AU50

This is a truly great rarity from the heady days of the California Gold Rush.

The year 1852 saw the United States Assay Office of Gold in San Francisco strike $50 slugs marked '887 THOUS' (a reference to the fineness of the gold). There have been only 94 in total  of the '877 THOUS' graded by NGC. There are 9 that carry the grade of AU50, with 53 finer.  

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

Gold miners during the California Gold Rush. This rarity was produced with gold from the Gold Rush.

Ron Guth writes in PCGS Coinfacts, "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."