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50 Dollars - United States Assay Office

Issuer United States Assay Office of Gold, San Francisco
Year 1852
Type Emergency coin
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Obverse script Latin
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Mintage 1852
Additional information

The U.S. Assay Office in San Francisco was established in 1851 specifically to process the overwhelming volume of gold flowing out of the Sierra Nevada foothills — the federal mint in Philadelphia was simply too far and too slow for California's needs. These fifty-dollar slugs, as they were known in the trade, were octagonal ingot-coins intended to move large sums efficiently, not to satisfy any numismatic ambition.

Kagin 14 specimens frequently show adjustment marks from the assay process itself, where excess gold was filed down to meet the stated weight before striking.

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