Bar From Gold Rush Sells for $8 Million
The largest known gold bar from the California Gold Rush--a bread-loaf-size brick named Eureka--has been sold for a record $8 million, officials said.
The ingot was bought by a collector described only as a “Forbes 400 business executive,” said Michael Cabrini, president of Monaco Financial, the Orange County-based rare coin company that handled the sale.
The price was almost double the previous record for collectible money. In 1999, a single silver dollar sold for more than $4 million, said Donn Pearlman of the Professional Numismatists Guild.
The bar was handmade in 1857 by California assayers Don Kellogg and August Humbert. Weighing nearly 80 pounds, the bar’s face was stamped with its 1857 value--$17,433.57.
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