1850 Baldwin & Co. $5.00


1850 Baldwin & Co. $5.00

Obverse Text: 1850 | BALDWIN & CO
Reverse Text: SM.V CALIFORNIA GOLD. | FIVE DOL.

Beginning as jewelers and watchmakers in San Francisco, the firm of Baldwin & Company entered the private coining business on March 15, 1850, led by partners George C. Baldwin and Thomas S. Holman after taking over F. D. Kohler & Company's operations. It was not until May that Baldwin & Co. posted a notice advertising their assay, refining and coining business. In short order, Baldwin & Co. was producing prodigious quantities of $5 and $10 gold pieces. The dies were finely produced and were almost certainly the work of noted engraver Albert Kuner. By early 1851, the San Francisco Herald reported that Baldwin & Co.'s output nearly matched that of the United States Assay Office of Gold.

The firm's $5 coin closely resembles the federal half eagle, but the 1850 $10 bears Kuner's famed "Vaquero" obverse with a mounted cowboy swinging a lasso. In 1851, the firm added $20 gold pieces to their repertoire and circulation continued, with most merchants accepting the coins at par. This all came to a quick end when James King of William submitted samples of each denomination to Augustus Humbert for assay. Humbert reported that the Baldwin pieces were underweight: the $20 piece had $19.40 of gold, the $10 only 9.40, while the $5 coin fared better with a valuation of $4.91. Even though some weight discrepancies could reasonably be expected, the assay and the subsequent news reports had a deleterious effect on Baldwin's business. Branded a "short-weight gold swindle," the pieces were driven from circulation, as businesses refused to accept them except at a steep discount. Although Baldwin tried to counter the accusations with a more favorable assay from Kohler, the damage had been done and on April 15, 1851, Baldwin closed up shop and left California on the steamship Panama. As a result of the constant denunciations, not only did almost all of the Baldwin & Co. coins end up in the melting pot, so too did most of the other private coiners' products. Now, Baldwin & Co. coins are prized by numismatists who are attracted to pioneer California gold. Very few exist in any grade and undamaged specimens are especially elusive.

View 1850 Baldwin & Co. $5.00 Auction Results

The example to the left was sold by Stack's Bowers Galleries in the March 2017 Baltimore Auction, where it realized $32,900.

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