Expert: Ronald Fern - 9/20/2011

Question
Hello, I just wanted to know about my 20 gold piece. I Was 10yrs old at the time Im 54yrs old now. I was out playing along the Delaware River in Burlington, NJ and my friends & i were digging our own foxs holes in the ground 3' to 4'down when i got to that point i stared to find Indian arrow heads, pottery, & a bone necklace. which i still have with me now. I also found in a ball of dirt that a broke apart to see if it was another arrow head & this little 1860 Twenty Dollar gold flat bar came out of the ball of dirt 3' to 4' down in the the  hole i created.The Gold Piece says Parsons & Assayers & CO Col. Twenty Dollars on the reverse side it says 18 1/2 and DWT28 6/10 The size is about 1 1/4" L x 3/4" W When I found the Items i told my friends & showed them what i have found. so we all started digging once again & found more arrow heads among other things that i have kept with me also through the years. We had left the site we were at because it started getting dark. so we all went home. When i returned home i showed my mother what i had found and she could not believe it.My mother called my grandfather on the phone & he came to our house right away & looked at everything & told my mother who was his daughter to put the things that i have found away for safe keeping.One of the friends that were with me when i found these things told his father who was at the time a police officer. His father told the police deartment what we have all found so the police had the area secured & no one was permitted back to the  the site we had found everything. Then a couple days later archaeologist had come to the site & were digging & investigating the site. Out siders were not permitted at the site.From what my mother had read in the local news papers days later that they found a Native American lodging site from the Delaware Indians Tribe. My friends father who was the police officer had told the police department that i have found some of the relics and they came to my home and ask my mother if i told her anything that i found or showed her anything.My mother at the time told them i found a couple of arrow heads and not the rest of the things that i had found. So the police department took the arrow heads in to their posession and told my mother it was goverment property and took them from us and never returned them.My mother did not return to them the pottery, necklace, the other arrow heads, and this twenty dollar gold piece that was just given to me by my mother a couple of months ago wich now she is 88yrs og age & not doing well. She kept the things i found in a cedar chest for 43yrs which i for got about what i have found as a kid. So i was just wondering if there is any value in the twenty dollar gold piece from 1860? Sincerely, Robert

Answer
Hi Robert:

This question, worded very close to yours, was asked in 2009 by a person who was nine when he found the same piece. His name was Robert too. Are you the same Robert, asking the same question again on AllExperts? If so, the answer PAPAJACK provided is still accurate, see: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Coin-Collecting-2297/2009/9/Parsons-Assayers-1860-Twe

If you are a different Robert, how strange two little boys, about a year apart, can find the exact same gold bar in a hole! What a great story you two boys have. It should make the news for sure.

When asking a question, especially on unusual or unique items, always provide as much information as possible. A photo, weight, thickness, width and length, would help pinpoint what you may have. I cannot give you a value without more information.

There are a lot of fakes, see: http://www.fake-gold-bars.co.uk/how/C8.htm From that site, "Parsons & Co.  John Ford said in an interview in Coin World on September 6, 1999 that he bought this bar from Paul Franklin in November 1952 for $225. Ford sold it to Don Keefer for over $500. The piece has long been controversial - Ford has referred to it as "Infamous" (Van Winkle 1990, Part II, 48). The bar has all its elements punched in with individual letter punches, a toilsome, expensive, and improbable method. The bar has no security edges; and it uses carats to indicate fineness, which was no longer used for bars in 1860 (Owens 2000, 50). The Parsons bar also suffers from the forger's dodgy math: it uses a gold price of $20.27. A second Parsons bar was displayed at the 2002 ANA Convention in New York City, in an elaborate velvet-lined presentation box with an engraved inscription on silver saying that this bar was the first gold bar made by Parsons in Colorado. A third Parsons bar was photographed in the Numismatist in September 1983. These other two bars share the same problems as the Smithsonian example.

Holabird, Evans, and Fitch, although declaring that they have reached no conclusion about the Parsons bar, say that their testing of the Smithsonian bar casts serious doubt upon it. The carat fineness stamped on the Smithsonian Parsons bar converts to 771 fine. But when tested, it turned out to be 877 fine. There is no reason to share the caution of Holabird, Evans, and Fitch. This degree of variation is far beyond the error one would expect from an assayer in the field. The Parsons bar is a forgery. Not surprisingly, since it was one of the very first bars that John Ford bought from Paul Franklin, it has the most significant errors. Franklin would improve his skills in forgery dramatically as the 1950s proceeded."

You may want to check eBay listings under US gold be specifically looking for Parsons & Assayers in the exonumia category 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 the value at no charge. Always try and get at least two opinions and try and deal with PNG dealers if possible. If you should decide to sell your items to a dealer, remember they will offer about 50% to 60% of the retail value. With a gold medal, you'd likely get about 90% of melt value. Here's a link to find one in your area: http://www.pngdealers.com/dealersearch.php

Hope this helps. Please remember to go to the experts site to rate this answer. Check the nomination box on the rating page below any comments you may have.

Thank You and Good Luck in your collecting.