Rare coins are quite a specialist area.
It’s rare that we bother popular culture very much.
The Brasher Doubloon is different though.
For some reason it’s the rare coin that has cut through into popular culture.
It was in a twice-filmed novel by Raymond Chandler. And has subsequently featured in a number of hard-boiled and noir detective tales.
Who knows why. Perhaps it’s the name - doubloons have an air of mystery and romance, and the pairing has a pleasing ring to it.
As a coin, it is beautiful. And it is extremely rare.
Here are 10 facts about the Brasher Doubloon.
Signed twice by its maker, this Brasher Doubloon is the most expensive example known.
1 - The Brasher Doubloon is not government issued currency
The Brasher Doubloon was struck by New York gold- and silversmith Ephraim Brasher.
It was not really “legal tender” in the way we understand it now, but a privately minted coin that could be accepted or not on the whim of traders.
2 - Brasher had a very special neighbour
Epraim Brasher lived next door to George Washington.
Brasher was himself quite a prominent citizen in the young republic.
He’d served militarily in the War of Independence and been a public official.
Washington lived in Cherry Street alongside him, and liked his work well enough to buy from him at least once.
Maybe Brasher thought this connection would help him get official work. We don't have any evidence of that though.
3 - We can trace Brasher’s initials through American history
Brasher’s reputation was built from assaying - testing the purity and quality of precious metals.
The Brasher stamp of his initials “EB” (sometimes and on one doubloon in an oval) or name can be found on precious metals from early US history well beyond coins.
He also worked at the Philadelphia mint assaying metal.
4 - How much was the Brasher doubloon worth?
A question not a fact.
When brasher was working the US was a very young state.
What was its currency?
What was it worth?
All questions that were up for grabs.
And that’s why you recognise the name doubloon from pirate movies set when Spain was a world power.
It’s a Spanish coin.
That at the time was something of a global standard for value - pounds, and then dollars would assume this role.
The Brasher Doubloon was worth eight escudos or 16 Spanish dollars.
The Lima Doubloon, also by Brasher, is less valuable. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions.
5 - The Brasher Doubloon is sort of a forgery
The Brasher Doubloon is not official government-issue currency.
But it looks like it.
That’s probably why it’s often called the US’s first coin.
And that’s because Brasher put the official seal of the US on one side.
That puts his coin at the top of a lineage of all those other “eagle” coins and makes it look official.
6 - The Brasher coin is a regional coin
When Brasher was working, New York was de facto the capital of the US.
Brasher had tried to get work from the New York authorities around the time he made the doubloons.
He failed.
But in another appeal to authority, his coins featured the state’s motto and emblem on one side.
NOVA EBORACA COLUMBIA EXCELSIOR
Eboracum is the Latin name for York as many British readers will know, so we have "New York, America, Higher".
7 - We talk about the Brasher Doubloon, but there are two
The Brasher Doubloon comes in two flavours.
Brasher was a business man.
Their authenticity has been the subject of debate but it’s now thought that a series called “Lima Doubloons” are also attempts by Brasher to make US gold coins.
These were basically straight copies of Spanish coins and are not - quite - as valuable as their new York brothers.
The Spanish coins were made in Lima, hence the name.
8 - There are 6 Brasher Doubloons
It is possible that somewhere there is another Brasher Doubloon, but the ones we know of are:
One in the National Numsimatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution.
One formerly at Yale University that was sold around 1998, probably for less than $1 million.
One in the Walter Perschke collection said to be worth $10 million. Not a bad return for a $430,000 purchase in 1979.
The Garrett specimen was owned by the Garrett family and sold in 2005 for just under $3 million.
One owned by the American Numismatic Society Specimen. Apparently discovered literally in a sewer and donated to the society in 1969.
The Dupont specimen owned by the famous chemical company family was stolen in a dramatic Florida robbery in 1967 bu found the following year.
The DuPont family shortly after gun-toting thieves took their Brasher Doubloon. Image from Miami Sun Herald.
9 - They’re not the most valuable Brasher coin
There is also a half doubloon.
Just one.
It’s lighter, but was made with the same dies.
The Smithsonian has it. It’s priceless.
10 - It was the most valuable US coin at auction
In January 2021 a Brasher Doubloon realised $9.36 million at auction.
That was a record.
But it no longer is.
That record belongs to the 1933 Double Eagle, which should have been destroyed.
An example sold for $18.8 million in 2021.
Like most extraordinary collectibles, the Brasher Doubloon has lots of stories attached to it.
Some of the best are in fiction.
Raymond Chandler made the coin the starting point for his novel, The High Window.
Unfortunately, Hollywood was all too keen to portray a coin specialist in a stereotyped way. Houseley Stevenson plays coin dealer Elisha Morningstar in the 1947 movie, The Brasher Doubloon.
In typically confused Chandler style it then becomes quite difficult to trace if the coin is real or not and who has - or hasn’t - stolen it.
It’s a great story despite that, and was filmed twice.
And, there’s evidence of Chandler’s research in the story. (And some advice on using dental supplies for forgery.)
"It is a gold coin, roughly equivalent to a twenty-dollar gold piece, and about the size of a half dollar. Almost exactly. It was made for the State of New York in the year 1787. It was not minted. There were no mints until 1793, when the first mint was opened in Philadelphia. The Brasher Doubloon was coined probably by the pressure molding process and its maker was a private goldsmith named Ephraim Brasher, or Brashear. Where the name survives it is usually spelled Brashear, but not on the coin. I don't know why."
"The two halves of the mold were engraved in steel, in intaglio, of course. These halves were then mounted in lead. Gold blanks were pressed between them in a coin press. Then the edges were trimmed for weight and smoothed. The coin was not milled. There were no milling machines in 1787."
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