1980 Grant Wood American Arts 1 Oz. Gold Medal PCGS MS68

Description: Finest graded (along with 18 others as of late June 2022) with none finer. This unusual, well-intentioned series of gold medals was sold by the U.S. Mint from 1980-1984 to compete with the then-near-monopoly that the Krugerrand had in the American gold bullion market. They were minted in .900 fine gold, while the Krugerrand was .9167 fine, and they were marketed by a strange system where purchasers had to call by phone to get a price confirmation and get their purchase requests time-stamped at the post office and pick up their gold medals at the post office. This cumbersome purchase process made the well-intentioned program far less successful than it could have been. The earlier issues were further hampered by the fact that nothing on them refers to their gold content, much less purity. Their prices were fixed as well based on the previous day’s gold spot price, so if gold went up, you could buy them and send them off to be melted for a profit. There was a 6-medal limit for a while, but it was eventually removed, which allowed some of the larger bullion houses to buy large quantities in this fashion to melt them for a profit. So, between many going unsold and many more of those sold being melted, some of these are likely much scarcer than their mintages reflect. And the Mint didn’t release mintage figures for them until 1986, two years after the program ended. The Grant Wood medal had a mintage of 500,000 pieces, of which 312,709 were actually sold to purchasers. As always, the photos you see in our auctions are of the actual item that you will receive.

Price: 3750 USD

Location: Orlando, Florida

End Time: 2024-12-10T07:05:44.000Z

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