1863-S $20 Liberty Head Double Eagle PCGS AU50 Ex. SS Brother Jonathan

"I’d rank Civil War gold as one of the more popular ultra-specialties in American numismatics," writes gold specialist Doug Winter.

This is a historic Liberty Head twenty issue for two reasons: it is from the first decade of coin production at the San Francisco Mint and it was struck midway through the bloody U.S. Civil War. Struck the year preceding the S.S. Brother Jonathan shipwreck, this lightly marked honey-gold double eagle saw some circulation prior to its time upon the ocean’s floor. PCGS has graded a total of 88 1863-S double eagles as AU50 with 392 finer.

Sailing card for the S.S. Brother Jonathan. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

 During the Civil War, gold coins vanished from commerce except in the far West, where the double eagle and other coins continued to circulate. Federal paper money was taken, but only at a sharp discount to gold coin. It was on August 30, 1996, that divers unearthed 875 gold coins from the 1860s in near-mint condition from the ruins of the S.S. Brother Jonathan. Over time, the salvagers retrieved 1,207 gold coins, mostly $20 double eagles. Of those, there were 116 of the 1863-S twenties found among the wreckage of the S.S. Brother Jonathan.

Prior to the discovery of the S.S. Brother Jonathan treasure, the 1863-S was one of the scarcest San Francisco issues of its era in high grades. Dave Bowers, who handled the treasure, writes: “The treasure from the S.S. Brother Jonathan brought to market a group of AU and Mint State coins, accounting for most of the higher grade pieces known today, although at least a dozen different Mint State coins were on the market in earlier times.”