Luxury Gadgets

America’s First Gold Coin Returns to Baltimore for $6 Million “Homecoming”

March 16th, 2006

Insured for $6 million, the fabled Brasher Doubloon — the United States’ first gold coin — returns to Baltimore for the first time in a quarter century for a public display, March 17 & 18, 2006.
The unique, first gold coin made for the United States over 200 years ago, the legendary multi-million dollar Brasher Doubloon, will be publicly exhibited in Baltimore for the first time since Johns Hopkins University sold it a quarter-century ago.
The fabled gold coin was purchased at an auction in early 2005 by Steven L. Contursi, President of Rare Coin Wholesalers of Dana Point, California. Since then Contursi has set up educational exhibits of the historic rare coin in New York City, San Francisco, Kansas City, St. Louis, Las Vegas, Orlando and Houston. Now it’s coming “home” to Baltimore for the first time since 1981.
The unique Brasher Doubloon was kept in a Baltimore vault for most of the 20th century when it was owned by the family of Baltimore & Ohio railroad magnate, T. Harrison Garrett, and later bequeathed to Johns Hopkins University.
The school sold the Brasher Doubloon at a 1981 public auction for the then-astounding price of $625,000.

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