Low Rarity-4. 1856 Gold 50C Liberty Head Round, initial N. on reverse. Period One - circulating issues between 1852 and 1856. Redbook Type: Large Liberty Head / 1856 in Wreath HALF DOL, initial N. below. Made by Antoine Louis Nouizillet.

Attractive, more affordable Fractional Gold variety in MS64PL. NGC has graded 6 of the BG-434 in Prooflike. Of those, there are 2 in MS64PL with none finer. PCGS has graded 9 as Prooflike. Of those, there is 1 in MS64PL with 3 finer.

Forty-niner panning for gold during the California Gold Rush. Photo: Wikipedia.

Don Kagin, the author of Private Gold Coins and Patterns of the United States (1981), explains how such coins were produced:

Most of the fractional coins were made by the hammer method .... This was a process of striking where the bottom die was placed on a block, a coin blank was laid upon it, and the top die upon the blank; this top die was then struck by a sledgehammer. Blows of varying intensity would cause potions of one side or edge to be more weakly struck than another.