The famous 1849 double eagle. The only confirmed example is in National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian Institution - inventory number 1986.0836.0064. It is believed to be the first double eagle struck. Walter Breen claimed to have seen an image of a second example ex Secretary of the Treasury William Meredith, Nagy estate but this piece has never turned up. This piece has some contact marks by the first star which have been there since 1913 as they appear on the Adams & Woodin plate image. The marks do not appear on the plates in the 1912-1914 Comparette Catalogs of the Mint Collection. This pattern is considered to be one of, if not the, most valuable coin ever struck. Walter Breen mentions that J. Piermont Morgan offered to pay the U.S. Mint $25,000 for the piece and researcher Roger Burdette found the following letter in the Mint Archives. "Nov. 2, 1904 Director of the U. S. Mint Philadelphia, Pa Dear Sir:-- In reference to the 1849 Twenty Dollar Gold piece at the Mint. Would ask if U. S. would accept an offer of $35,000xx/100 for same? Yours very truly, John A. Beck" This letter is likely the source for this amount in the Adams and Woodin book. To give one some idea as to how much esteem this double eagle pattern was held in back then, the famous Dexter-Dunham-Bareford example of the 1804 silver dollar sold less than a month earlier in Lyman Low's October 1904 H.G. Brown sale for barely over $1000. This same coin brought almost $2,000,000 circa 2000. John Beck was willing to pay almost 35 times the value of that famous coin to own this double eagle pattern. Photo courtesy of the National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian Institution. An example was also restruck in brass J118/P133 in the 1870s? for Robert Coulton Davis. It last appeared in the April 1892 New York Coin and Stamp sale auction of the George W. Woodside collection where the obverse was plated and with the description below. The piece sold to J.C. Randall for $55 and has not been seen since. Does anyone know where it is today? Description and Woodside image courtesy of Saul Teichman.