1863 $20 Liberty Head Double Eagle PCGS MS-63 CAC Ex.Great Kentucky Hoard

In June 2023 an anonymous landowner unearthed more than 800 Civil War–era coins—over 700 of them gold—in a Kentucky cornfield, a discovery captured in a short YouTube video posted June 9 in which he counted dirt-caked pieces and called it “the most insane thing ever.” The cache, quickly named the Great Kentucky Hoard, is a virtual time capsule of mid-19th-century gold: roughly 95 percent gold dollars (Type I–III, 1850s–1862), about twenty Liberty eagles dated 1840–1862, eight earlier double eagles of 1857–1862, a handful of silver coins, and—crowning the find—a concentrated group of 1863 Philadelphia double eagles. Published accounts usually cite eighteen of those 1863 twenties; we can account for nineteen pieces from the recovery – one impaired coin was held back by the landowner - all originally certified by NGC. The average grade was 62.3. The highest graded MS64.5. On the downside, three of the twenties were described as “excavation recovery.” Jeff Garrett, who handled the find with NGC and NCS, noted that locating even one Mint State 1863 double eagle would be a major event; finding nearly a roll of high-grade examples was almost incomprehensible.

Kentucky’s official neutrality in 1861 did not spare it from raids, divided families, or the fear of confiscation. The latest coins in the hoard date to 1863, and conflict archaeologist Ryan McNutt has suggested the cache may have been buried ahead of Confederate general John Hunt Morgan’s June–July 1863 raid through the state. Philadelphia struck 142,790 business-strike double eagles that year as gold fled circulation in the East; Uncirculated survivors were scarce before this find. After conservation, most hoard coins showed surprising luster for pieces that had lain in the ground more than 150 years, and NGC applied a distinctive Great Kentucky Hoard pedigree label. Estimates of the hoard’s market value have ranged from more than $1 million to over $3 million.

This is the single PCGS example known to us from the 1863 double eagles recovered with the hoard, and one of only three coins from that group to carry CAC endorsement. We recently crossed it over from an NGC MS63 CAC holder, so that it might fit into a PCGS Registry Set collection. As a pedigree piece from one of the most important Civil War gold discoveries of the modern era, it stands apart from the NGC-certified majority and offers both the historical weight of a 1863 burial and the market distinction of independent PCGS and CAC recognition.