Finest example of the famed, 1787 coin sold Thursday, Jan. 21 in Dallas, Texas
“The World’s Most Famous Coin” is now “The World’s Most Valuable Gold Coin” after it sold for a record $9,360,000 at a public auction of important U.S. coins held by Heritage Auctions, Jan. 21, 2021, in Dallas, Texas. The 1787 gold coin is the finest of the mere seven specimens known to exist.
Bidding by phone with the successful bidder, from the moment the lot opened, was Heritage Auctions’ President Greg Rohan.
The doubloon is the finest example of its kind and Thursday’s sale marked just the third time the coin has been auctioned since 1848. Officially titled the 1787 New York-Style Brasher Doubloon, W-5840, NGC MS65★, it is known throughout numismatics and beyond as “The World’s Most Famous Coin.”
Brasher Doubloons have been popularized in detective novels and motion pictures, such as The High Window, by Raymond Chandler, and the feature film The Brasher Doubloon (20th Century Fox, 1946). To the average American citizen, the Brasher Doubloon is the archetype of a rare and valuable coin and enjoys a lofty status in pop culture that is unapproached by any other coin.
This example displays terrific eye appeal, the technical quality is the finest available and the historic importance of this issue is profound.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the previous auction record for a gold coin was $7.59 million for a 1933 $20 Double Eagle, which was sold in 2002 in New York.