1849 Oregon Territorial $5

When purchasing a new coin to add to one’s collection, it is important to ask, “Is this authentic?” This can be especially true when one is in the market for a true rarity. Without personal experience and knowledge of the attributes of a genuine example, truly rare coins can be a risky purchase without the trust of a reliable third-party expert.

Territorial gold is one area of numismatics full of rarities. This 1849 Oregon Territorial $5 was recently submitted for authentication by NCS experts. This issue was created by a private mint in Oregon Territory — before the state of Oregon was created — to serve the needs of a growing populace and gold rush miners.

As a special request, non-destructive metallic content testing was performed on this coin to determine authenticity. The results of this testing were also included on the coin’s final label. This coin was determined to be genuine and given a Details Grade of Almost Uncirculated also noting the damage on the piece.

See more in the Authentication Gallery.