The year 1848 is associated with a trio of rare or famous quarter eagle issues from the Philadelphia Mint. We have chosen the conjunction "or" deliberately here since the first of these issues, while the most famous in numismatic circles, is actually the least rare in high grades and can only rightly be described as scarce in an absolute sense. We are writing, of course, of the 1848 CAL. quarter eagle, widely regarded as the United States Mint's first commemorative coin issue. The mintage for the issue is a scant 1,389 coins, all of which are marked CAL. in the upper reverse field indicating that they were struck from California gold shipped to the Philadelphia Mint on December 9, 1848 by the military governor of California.

The second of these issues, underrated in comparison to the 1848 CAL. in Mint State, is the circulation strike 1848 quarter eagle without the CAL. mark on the reverse. The mintage for that issue is 6,500 coins, survivors of which are overshadowed by those of the 1848 CAL., but which are elusive in today's market, particularly in Mint State.

The last in this trio is certainly not the least, for it is a classic rarity. As with all pre-1859 United States Mint Proof gold coins, the 1848 quarter eagle was produced in extremely limited numbers, the mintage not recorded by Mint personnel at the time. These coins were made either for official presentation purposes or for distribution to a few contemporary collectors with close ties to the Mint. Even among the latter there was little interest in Proof gold coins until news of James Wilson Marshall's famous discovery of gold in California reached the Eastern United States. Such limited contemporary demand, combined with the paltry number of coins extant, suggests that the mintage for the Proof 1848 quarter eagle almost certainly did not exceed five coins. The Mint used only a single pair of dies for this issue, the obverse readily identifiable by a prominent die rust pit on Liberty's neck. The reverse is the same that the Mint used to strike all known Proof Liberty Head quarter eagles dated 1840 to 1848. The use of a "master" reverse die, if you will, for Proof coinage throughout the 1840s is known for other denominations, including the silver dollar.

Today, only three Proof 1848 quarter eagles are positively confirmed to exist, one of which is permanently impounded in the Smithsonian Institution's National Numismatic Collection. John W. Dannreuther (United States Proof Coins, Volume IV: Gold, Part One, 2018) mentions a possible fourth example, an impaired coin reported by Stack's, although the author asserts that that coin might be a duplicate of one of the two confirmed specimens.

Roster of Known Specimens of 1848 Proof Liberty Head Quarter Eagles

1 | PR-65 Cameo | The National Numismatic Collection Specimen

• Mint Cabinet Collection

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2 | PCGS PR-64 | The John Jay Pittman Specimen

• George H. Earle
• June 1912, Henry Chapman's sale of the George H. Earle Collection, Lot 2541, sold to "William"
• "Colonel" E.H.R. Green
• June 23, 1943, probably the coin offered by Burdette G. Johnson to F.C.C. Boyd
• Thomas G. Melish
• April 1956, Abe Kosoff's sale of the Thomas G. Melish Collection, Lot 1181
• John Jay Pittman
• Pittman Estate
• May 1998, David W. Akers' sale of the John Jay Pittman Collection, Part II, Lot 1759
• Spectrum Numismatics and Kevin Lipton
• Larj
• March 2006, Heritage's Palm Beach Signature Sale, Lot 1775
• May 2007, Heritage's CSNS Signature Sale, Lot 2246
• January 2008David Lawrence Rare Coin's Internet Auction #2111, Lot 90116
• May 2013, Richard Burdick, on consignment
• May 23, 2019 Stack's Bowers Galleries Rarities Night Featuring The Drummer and Fairmont Collections, Lot 1086

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3 | PCGS PR-62 | The Trompeter Specimen

• William H. Woodin
• March 1911, Thomas Elder's sale of the William H. Woodin Collection, Lot 973
• Lyman Low, as agent
• Virgil Brand
• Brand Estate
• Horace or Armin Brand
• F.C.C. Boyd
• January 1946, Numismatic Gallery's sale of the World Greatest Collection (Boyd), Lot 115
• Texas collector
• Stanley Kesselman, privately to Paramount International Coin Corporation
• Fred Davies
• February 1975, Paramount's Davies-Niewwoehner Sale, Lot 495
• Dr. Elias Rand
• Ed Trompeter
• Superior's Dennis Mendelson Collection, Lot 2669, unsold
• Heritage and Sil DiGenova, acquired as part of the Trompeter Collection
• January 1999, Heritage's FUN Signature Sale, Lot 8001

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The example to the left was offered by Stack's Bowers Galleries in the May 2019 Baltimore Auction, where it did not meet the reserve.