1849-C Open Wreath

Charlotte struck its very first gold dollar mintage in 1849 from two reverse states of James B. Longacre's new design. The Open Wreath die came first, with a wider gap between the bow and ribbon ends than the Closed Wreath die that replaced it later in the year. Both wreath states share the combined Charlotte 1849 mintage of 11,634 pieces, but the Open Wreath die saw only a brief working life before the changeover. The result is one of the great rarities of United States gold coinage: fewer than ten 1849-C Open Wreath dollars are known to survive across all grades, with no Mint State examples on any cabinet record.

Identifying the wreath state is straightforward once a collector has both reverse types side by side. The Open Wreath shows daylight between the wreath terminations at the bottom; the Closed Wreath nearly touches. At this rarity tier, however, simple attribution is the easy part. The bigger question is provenance. The standard Charlotte counterfeit method (adding a C mintmark to a Philadelphia 1849 host) is a real concern across the series, and the typical added-mintmark diagnostic is a slightly off-center or wrong-style C with a soft join to the field. For an issue of this rarity, certification by the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) or the Numismatic Guaranty Company (NGC) is the floor, not the ceiling. Doug Winter has individually catalogued nearly every known example, and a coin that does not appear in his Charlotte gold dollar census or in published Heritage and Stack's Bowers auction archives should not be accepted on slab alone.

No serious Charlotte gold dollar set will ever include the Open Wreath. The issue sits outside the realm of advanced specialists and into the territory of trophy buyers; a confirmed example in the AU range (About Uncirculated, the grade tier just below Mint State) carries six-figure expectations whenever one surfaces. For collectors building a date-and-mintmark Type 1 set, the practical convention is to acquire the 1849-C Closed Wreath (also scarce, but obtainable) and treat the Open Wreath as a separate, optional variety. For deeper context on the design and the Charlotte issues that anchor it, see the Liberty Head Gold Dollar series history.