Rare $20 'Double Eagle' Gold Coin Sells for $1.44M at Southern California Auction

A rare $20 "double eagle" gold coin from 1870 was sold at a Southern California auction for a staggering $1.44 million, including the buyer's premium, on Tuesday afternoon.

The coin, minted in Carson City, Nevada, was up for grabs at the Stack's Bowers Galleries auction. Only 3,789 of these coins were ever produced, and an estimated 40 to 50 still exist, according to John Kraljevich, who specializes in coin history at the auction house.

The auction house did not disclose the identity of the coin's buyer.

Before 1849, the highest denomination for a gold coin was $10, known as the eagle. The $20 double eagle was authorized after the California Gold Rush brought in a massive gold supply, Kraljevich said.

This particular coin was last sold at a Stack's auction in 1986 for $23,100.

"This thing was totally off everybody's radar," Kraljevich said. "When this thing appeared kind of out of the woodwork after being off the market for 25 years, 30 years, it was almost like a new discovery."

By the time the live auction reached the coin, the bid price had already reached $800,850, far outpacing the other coins in the catalog. It was sold from the Bernard Richards collection and is the finest grade coin of its type known to exist, according to the industry standard Professional Coin Grading Service. However, it fell short of the auction's prediction that it would break the $2 million barrier.

The second finest coin was sold in an auction for $1.62 million in November 2021.

The price of collector's coins went up substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic, as people turned to investing in their hobbies, Kraljevich said.

The value of the gold itself, which in the coin is just under one ounce, is about $2,600.