US Mormon Gold Piece (Counterfeit) 1849 to 1860

Brighman Young himself was the architect behind a coinage system in Salt Lake City. Very few gold pieces in denominations from 2.5 dollars to 20 dollars were minted with dates 1849 and 1850. These coins are extremely rare, worth tens to hundreds of thousands of US dollars.

If your coin looks like my picture at the upper right, it is a replica of the real thing and worth essentially zero, maybe a few dollars. Numismatist Mike Locke has a terrific web site on these old gold coins, and related coins and tokens, and you can learn a lot just browsing his web site. Thanks to Mike for letting CoinQuest use his image. Here is what he says about this piece:

I know of 5 different replicas of this coin, two of which are very accurate copies by C.M. Larson, including a pure gold version. The C.M. Larson replicas are edge marked C.M. Larson. The brass replicas weigh about 8 grams. The gold replica weighs 15.62 grams. The 2 cast pot metal replicas weigh 6 and 12 grams respectively. The correct weight for this piece is 14.3 grams, according to Don Kagin.

A picture of a genuine Mormon gold coin is found at CoinFacts. You can see the substantial difference between the copy and the real thing.

The genuine $5 piece to the left sold for $25000 during a 2015 auction by Fritz Rudolph Kunker. The initials GSLCPG stand for Great Salt Lake City Pure Gold. It is an amazing coin.
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