1888-S $20 Liberty Head Double Eagle PCGS MS63 Ex. Fairmont Collection

Formerly sold by Stacks Bowers for $6,600 on April 2022, Lot #5460, and described as:

1888-S Liberty Head Double Eagle. MS-63 (PCGS).

This would be a desirable coin to add to your collection, perhaps as a U.S. gold type coin. Why is that? Because even though its mintage of 859,600 makes this a common issue in the popular Liberty Head double eagle series, in its grade of MS63 it is near the top of PCGS-graded 1888-S twenties. It could even be considered a premium grade for this issue. How so? Well, PCGS has graded 498 as MS63, with 102 finer. However, no piece is graded finer than MS64+ by PCGS. The Collectors Universe price for this issue in MS63 is $6,000.00.

The Second San Francisco Mint where this great collectible was struck in 1888.

Below is the original catalogue write-up from Stacks Bowers:

Handsome, fully original surfaces are carefully preserved at the Choice Mint State grade level. A mintage of 859,600 double eagles was recorded for the San Francisco Mint in 1888, and the vast majority of these probably served extensively in the daily needs of commerce, while others were used for overseas trade or kept on reserve for the redemption of paper currency. In 1982, David W. Akers reported appearances of Uncirculated examples in only about 10% of the major auction sales examined by him while preparing his celebrated double eagle opus. He regarded the issue as "moderately scarce" in Mint State. In subsequent years, the number of Mint State examples increased dramatically, and by 2004 when Q. David Bowers wrote his Guide Book of Double Eagles, the high end Mint State estimate had swelled to an excess of 2,500 pieces. Even so, examples grading finer than MS-62 remain scarce from a condition standpoint, confirming the significance of the present offering for the quality conscious gold collector.

Provenance: From the Fairmont Collection-Hendricks Set.