The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-02-01

 dollar piece the thirteen stars were changed from the face to the back, where they have ever since remaintd. It was not, however, until the year lS66 that the motto ''In God We Trust was placed above the eagle, and beneath the thirteen stars. upon the American gold and silver coins.
 Until 1s4a, when gold was discovered in California. the United States gov ernment coined no gold pieces higher than ten dollars: but along toward the latter part of 1849 one twenty-dollar gold piece was struck by way of exper- iment. Only this single twenty-dollar gold coin, and none others, was at that time struck. and it is to-day the only 1S49 double eagle in the world. It re- poses in the mint at Philadelphia, and although collectors have offered large sums for it, the government has quite properly refused to part with it. In the year following 1850, however. the gov ernment turned out a large number of double eagles, which it has kept vp euer since. Speaking of American numisma- tics, the owner of the two coins, 2ho is quite an authority on such matters, said:
 Tt is astonishing the number of mis- conceptions which people entertain with regard to gold coins. It would take me too long to describe all of them fully, so will simply tell you about one which, to me. is about the funniest thing going. The government began the coinage of one dollar gold pieces in 1849, which was kept up until the year 1889, since which time no gold dollars have been issued. They sell for double face falue. and are becoming rare. In 1854 three-dollar gold coins were issu'a, the coinage of which was kept up until 1859, when it was discontinued, and now they are. also worth double their face value. The s2.50 gold pieces, however, which were first issued in the year 1596, following the appearance of the first American gold coins, in the shape of ten-dollar pieces, have been coined ever since, and, together with the five ter and twenty-dolla pieces, constitute the gold coins which are being now issued by the government. M
 Thus it happens that the ten dollar piece and the $2.5O token are the two oldest gold coins of the American gov- ernment, and. what is more, they have been continuously issued ever since. However. despite the fact that any one with a gold certificate can go to any bank in America and cash it in for $2.5O gold pieces, there are hundreds of 1eo- pie here in Washington who imagine i the government has ceased coiuillg S2.5O pieces; that they are extremely rare, and that a premium is being 1aid for them. I have had well dressed, good looking, intelligent people, who ought 10 know better, come to me time and again during the past year, offering to dispose of handful of these coins for the pre- lniun and face which they imagined such coins were bringing. When tell them that such tokens are being coined right along they think I am misrepre- senting matterh. Now, the fun of it all is that several local pawn-brokers and dealers in valuables have been laboring under the same mistaken notion, and have been actually paying a premium on such coins and trying 10 sell them at double their face value. In some way they have gotten the three dollar gold piece, which was last coined in 1889 mixed ID with the s2.5O token, and are paying premium on the latter, which are common enough when it is tIie for ] ner that are becoming scarce and are worth double their face value
 The handsomest of the gold coins is sued by the American government is undoubtedly the thrse dollar gold token issued during the iserlod from 1854 tc 1889. This is the coin which bears or it's face the bust of an Indian princess
 which, despite the fact that it is artis- tlcally perfect, is ethnologically incor- rect, for the reason that the princess
 wears a headdress of ostrich plunles, a bird indigenous to South Africa, an6
 with which the aborigines were not at all familiar Washington Post.