A TRUE '48er

I love California Gold Rush history.  

You've all read plenty and heard plenty about the great rush for gold. Miners, merchants, gamblers, forty niners, so on. The great rush to California, from the States, or the area east of Missouri, began in earnest Jan. 1849. Letters had started showing up in newspapers speaking of the great gold discovery, rumors, tales, crazy exaggerations as to the richness and ease in acquiring the gold. People were hesitant, were the stories true?



The seeds of "gold fever" had been planted and were being nurtured along by all the rumors and whispers. Sounded to good to be true, couldn't be true. Gold for the taking... lying on the ground! Not quite enough faith in the reports to quit a job or give up a farm and make a "harebrained" trip to the gold fields in Calif... not quite yet.


Everything changed when a young artillery officer named Lucien Loeser arrived in Washington City on Dec. 7th, 1848. Loeser had made a perilous journey in late Aug. from Monterrey, down the coast and across lower Mexico. He finally stepped ashore in New Orleans on Nov. 22, 1848. He carried letters, maps and statistics put together by Col. Richard Mason, military governor of California. He also carried 230 ounces of placer gold packed tightly into a tea caddy. Col. Mason and Lt. William T. Sherman, yes.. that Sherman, had traveled through the gold region for 2 weeks in July of 1848. Mapping the region, they purchased gold from several groups of miners and Mason put his reports and actual proof of gold in the care of young Loeser.

 The news that Loeser carried rushed ahead of him like a brush fire! President Polk, about to leave office, and giving his last address to Congress, dropped the bombshell on Dec. 5th, 1848. "It has been known that mines of precious metals existed to some extent in California before the acquisition. Recent discoveries render it probable that these mines are more extensive and valuable than we anticipated. The accounts of the abundance of gold in that territory are so extraordinary that they could scarcely be believed if not corroborated by trusted officers in the public service". Polk urged for the immediate creation of a mint in California.


Two days later Loeser arrived with the tangible proof. The gold he carried was put on display at the library of the War Department. Samples carried to the mint in Philadelphia were quickly assayed and found to be of an average fineness of .894. Almost the standard of gold coins. Thousands flocked to see the samples in the War Dept. The gold fever was now an epidemic!

That "tea caddy" gold of 1848 is preserved in this 1848 quarter eagle. Mason and Sherman purchased gold at Sutters Fort, the Mormon Diggings or Mormon Island, possibly at Coloma. They visited Weber Creek. The gold from these early camps and diggings is mixed together in this coin. '48er Gold!

The 230 ounces of gold was quickly coined into 1389 quarter eagles, each with the distinctive "CAL" for California gold, stamped above the eagle on the reverse.

Those who caught the dreaded "gold fever" on the east coast of the United States in Dec. 1848 were actually late to the party. The word had spread quickly in the summer of 1848 to Oregon Territory, to Mexico, to Hawaii, down to Peru, to Chile. Across the ocean to China and Australia. The French were on their way to San Francisco by Nov. of 1848.






1848 in Upper California... before the tremendous rush of 1849-50. How would that have been? It has been said that the land was so rich that it discouraged effort. Gold for the taking..... by the early 1850's, the '48ers, or men that were in California in 1848 and before were looked on with a certain reverence and awe. To be there before the rush.... some profited greatly from their position, many were swept away with the tide.




I have been chasing one of these "CAL" quarter eagles for a long, long time. Quite a few exist, as many were saved over the years by families of dignitaries that acquired them in Dec. of 1848. Possibly upwards of 20 are known in mint state, with about twice that many more known in circulated conditions.

They are just too popular with collectors! I'm chasing and I can't catch up. I couldn't afford one back in the mid 1970's, can't afford one now! The past couple of years has brought some new, deep pocketed collectors into the pioneer gold coin arena. Prices have skyrocketed. Some view this coin as a relative to the pioneer coins of the California Gold Rush, some consider it a commemorative coin, some a quarter eagle type coin.

To me, it's a real '48er.