Expert: Ronald Fern - 12/11/2011

Question
My father has a total of three of the above coin. He is guessing that two of them are probably counterfeit but wonders if the one is real.   We were wondering if you were an expert on this type of coin.  Would you know what the value of it may be today? Or do you know if there is anyone in the Lincoln or Omaha, NE area to take it to that may be able to give us some insight. You can e-mail me back at  and I will pass the information on to my dad.
Thank you for your time.

Answer
Hi Teri:

I've answered a similar question like yours several times. Without more of a description, I'm going to assume you have a Blake and Co. $20 gold piece. Either photos, as well as weight, diameter, thickness, and metal composition, help to establish what you may have. There must be a number of these circulating out there. I'm guessing much of the interest is due to gold going up so much. It's now around the $1710 mark.

Blake and Co. were assayers in 1854 in California. It is also the year the San Francisco mint started and private companies were ordered to stop production of coins.

There's a strong chance your item is a replica.  Only 2 known genuine specimens exist, one in the Smithsonian and the other was in the Bank of California coin collection. This 1855 date is one of the most commonly encountered gold rush replica coins. It is a copy of a Blake and Company $20 gold piece. Those brass copies show a coining press on one side and concentric circles on the other. Chrysler Corporation mass produced these replicas in 1969 as part of a promotion for their "Gold Duster" car, and they are still fooling people to this day. The reproduction coins were not struck in solid gold, so that is a quick way to tell if you own a reproduction. A real Blake and Company $20 gold piece weighs 32.9 grams, but the copy weighs less.

This "coin" is copied fairly often and offered for sale on eBay. There is one listed for about $5. If you look at it under a loupe, you should see that it is roughly cast  and you may be able to see the underlying metal (grey) through the plated surface. If you drop it on a glass surface (table top), the replica coin will make a dull sound compared to a real coin.

See Link: http://cgi.ebay.com/1855-Blake-Co-Assayers-20-Sac-California-Token_W0QQitemZ1503.

For some interesting history on this item, see the below links.

See Link: http://www.coinfacts.com/pioneer_gold/blake_and_company/blake_and_company.html

See Link: http://www.reisbord.com/goldrusassayers.htm

If you have a genuine Baldwin and Co $20 piece, it will be valued somewhere between $10,000 and $100,000, depending on the exact design and condition. But for every real one there are probably 10,000 that are fakes cast in lesser fineness gold, if they are even gold, and sold as souvenirs about 100 years later. Since they were made before the Hobby Protection Act of 1972, they usually are not marked as copies.

You may want to check eBay listings in the California gold category or exonumia (tokens) under coins and currency from time to time to see if items like yours are listed and what they are going for.

If you live close to a local shop, they should offer an opinion as to it's value and if it is authentic at no charge. Always try and get at least two opinions and try and deal with PNG dealers if possible. Here's a link to find one in your area: http://www.pngdealers.com/dealersearch.php

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Thank You and Good Luck in your collecting.