1860 $10 Colorado Gold - Clark Gruber 'Pikes Peak' Eagle PCGS AU50

The most successful private mint in the Pikes Peak region of Colorado was the Leavenworth, KS, company of Clark, Gruber & Co. The banking facet of the their operation opened its doors for business on July 10, 1860, in Denver City. Thus it was one of the first banking firms in the Colorado Territory. Most of their business was in raw gold: dust, nuggets, ore, and rough ingots. They determined quite soon that the expense and danger of shipping their gold to the Philadelphia mint was simply too high. Therefore, since at the time it was legal for private firms to mint their own coins, Clark, Gruber & Co. purchased equipment and dies necessary to do so. They established their own mint in Denver, issuing gold coins in the denominations of $2-1/2, $5, $10 and $20.

Pikes Peak, the iconic mountain that appears on the coin offered by AUCM. 

The Rocky Mountain News, July 25, 1860, described the Clark, Gruber & Co. facility and the mintage of $10 coins:

 [Upon] invitation we forthwith repaired to the elegant banking house of the firm…and were admitted to their coining room in the basement, where we found preparations almost complete for the issue of Pikes Peak coin. A hundred 'blanks' had been prepared, weight and fineness tested, and last manipulation gone through with prior to their passage through the stamping press. The little engine that drives the machinery was fired up, belts adjusted, and between 3 and 4 o'clock the machinery was put in motion and 'mint drop' of the value of $10 each began dropping into a tin pail with the most musical 'clink.' About $1,000 were turned out, at the rate of fifteen or twenty coins a minute, which was deemed satisfactory for the first equipment. The coins--of which none but $10 pieces are yet coined--are seventeen grains heavier than the United States coin of the same denomination."On the face is a representation of the Peak, its base surrounded by a forest of timber, and 'Pikes Peak Gold' encircling the summit. Immediately under its base is the word 'Denver' and beneath it 'Ten D.' On the reverse is the American eagle, encircled by the name of the firm 'Clark, Gruber & Co.,' and beneath it the date, '1860.' The coin has a little of the roughness peculiar to newness, but is upon the whole, very credible in appearance, and a vast improvement over 'dust' as a circulating medium.