1855 $50 Kellogg & Co. California Gold - Commemorative Restrike PCGS Gem Mint State Ex.SS Central America w/Case

Here’s a different gold collectible for the California Gold Rush enthusiast—struck with actual Gold Rush gold. It is a stunning restrike of the original $50 business strike Kellogg slug. There are just 14 or so examples known to have survived into our own time. This Restrike offered by AUCM was produced from gold ingots recovered from the wreck of the S.S. Central America, which sat upon the ocean's floor for over 130 years. This restrike was made by the California Historical Society in San Francisco.

Gold miners during the California Gold Rush. The original $50 1855 Proof Kellogg slugs were made of gold rush gold--and so was this offering from AUCM. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

The Kellogg fifty dollar slug in all likelihood owes its existence to its potential as an advertisement, rather than to any commercial requirement for such a coin. By late 1854, Kellogg had ended his affiliation with Richter and had taken on a new partner, Augustus Humbert. 

It was Humbert who had popularized the dramatic eagle design used on the back of the Kellogg Fifty Dollar slug when he was a principal at the US Assay Office of Gold. Ferdinand Gruner was the engraver of the slug. The Wass, Molitor & Co. firm was Kellogg's main competition in the private coinage industry, and they were renowned for their oversized $50 slugs. Kellogg unquestionably produced his artistically superior slug to show his firm's ability to keep pace with the competition at all levels of the private coinage trade.