Description

The SS Central America Octagonal Humbert $50 Gold Commemorative has been created the old-fashioned way. Possibly the last surviving artist who still hand-engraves master coin dies is engraver Ron Landis. He was commissioned to engrave the dies for this beautiful new commemorative, and he used the finest-known original 1852 Humbert $50 as his model. Using only his eyes and his masterful hands, he engraved the master dies over a three month period working day and night, just like they would have done in 1852. Every process in the production of this coin had to be created by hand, a true work of art.

Even the refining of the gold had to be reworked using an age-old process. Every ounce of gold used to create these beautiful commemoratives was recovered from the shipwreck of the SS Central America. They are made from two re-acquired gold bricks which were sold to primary investors years ago. They were Kellogg & Humbert ingots #555 and #830, which confirms the fact that not only are these wonderful works of art created out of real California Gold Rush gold, but they are created using gold which was assayed by the company owned by Augustus Humbert himself. And, since Humbert was a master assayer, these two ingots quite possibly were assayed by his own hand.

The most exciting part of the SS Central America $50 Octagonal Humbert Commemorative is the extremely low and limited mintage. The amount of gold recovered from the two ingots allowed only 375 examples of this numismatic masterpiece to be recreated. These large and beautiful 2.5 ounce gold works of art are simply incredible when you consider that each feather, claw, shield and every detail was recreated by the hand of Ron Landis.