Collectors spent $25.3 million to purchase just 128 coins Tuesday night at the sale of the D. Brent Pogue Collection, presented by auctioneers Stacks Bowers Galleries and Sotheby’s in New York. A small gold coin from 1808, called a Quarter Eagle and worth just $2.50 when it was minted, realized $2.35 million – a new world record for any coin of the quarter eagle denomination. It also became the most valuable 19th-century U.S. gold coin ever sold at auction. Two more coins fetched prices over $1.5 million: a Mint State example of the first United States quarter dollar, struck in Philadelphia in 1796, and the finest known example of the very rare 1797 half dollar. Each sold for a total price, including buyer’s fee, of $1,572,500 million, matching a world record for the most valuable quarter dollar ever sold and setting a brand new world record for the most valuable half dollar ever sold.
