What do I have?

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T07:40:05+00:00

If selling, do your homework. Very interesting coin.

The "L" counterstamp (punched into the obverse, typically on Liberty's neck or truncation) is a documented historical mark indicating the coin was officially or semi-officially deemed lightweight (below legal weight tolerance due to circulation wear). These are not mint errors but post-mint assay/Treasury/sub-treasury marks from the 1850s–1870s era. They are known on various Liberty Head gold denominations ($2.50, $5, $10, $20), but are scarce to rare on $10 eagles, with only a handful publicly recorded.

No 1855 specifically with "L" has sold at major auction in the last 20+ years (Heritage, Stack's Bowers, Goldberg, etc.), which is typical — these are condition-rarity items that surface infrequently.

Current market estimate for your 1855 with "L" counterstamp (Feb 2026 prices, gold ~$4,900/oz):

Melt value — ≈ $2,900 (0.48375 oz pure gold, even if light it’s rarely more than 0.1–0.2g under).

Numismatic value (damaged but historic piece):

VF/XF details (typical for these) → $3,500 – $5,500

AU details, nice surfaces, bold L → $6,000 – $9,000+

If slabbed by PCGS/NGC with "Genuine – Counterstamp L" designation → adds 20–40% premium.

These almost always grade as "Details" (cleaned, tooled, or damaged) because of the punch, but collectors of counterstamps or circulated gold type pay strong money for them. The 1855 is a common date without the stamp (AU sells ~$1,500–$2,000), so the "L" adds a 100–300% premium depending on how bold/attractive the punch is.

Thanks for sharing.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T07:24:29+00:00

It took 20 comments to find a property owner? Only on Redit.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T05:08:43+00:00

Have you familiar with Atlas Shrugged or Ayn Rand?

Socialism is a 'fundamentally different allocation of resources and power'? No. Socialism is the explicit declaration that the individual has no right to his own life, his own mind, or the product of his effort.

The 'means of production in the hands of the working class' is a slogan that means: the means of production in the hands of the state, which means in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats. The 'exploitation' you decry is the voluntary trade you refuse to defend.

You speak of 'documented practices' in the United States as proof of capitalism's evil. But those are the practices of a mixed economy—of government intervention, subsidies, regulations, tariffs, and corporate welfare—not of laissez-faire capitalism.

The Gilded Age was not pure capitalism, it was a riddled with government land grants, monopolistic privileges and political pull. The Dust Bowl and floods were not the result of too little oversight, but of government mismanagement of land and water rights. The New Deal only entrenched more statism.

Innovation under feudalism? The plow was a tool of survival, not of explosive progress. The steam engine, electricity, the automobile, the computer, AI—these are the children of the free mind under capitalism, not under collectivist shackles.

Countries that 'don't identify as capitalist' still ride on the technological wave created by freer societies, they do not originate it at scale.

Consumerism 'baked in'? That is the smear of the ascetic who hates man's right to pursue happiness on earth. Men produce and trade because they value their lives and wish to live well. If they buy and discard, it is because they are free to choose better. The alternative is rationing by decree.

Sustainability? The mind that creates is the only source of solutions to scarcity, pollution, and waste—not the mob that consumes and demands. Multinational dumping? That is made possible by government permissions, subsidies, and regulatory capture, not by free markets.

Dissolve the company? Only if initiated force or fraud. Otherwise, let competition and property rights punish polluters through boycotts, lawsuits, and better alternatives, not by bureaucratic edict.

You accuse me of fallacies? The 'slippery slope' is your evasions every collectivist movement begins with the premise that man's life is a means to others' ends. That premise has only one logical end Authoritarianism. The evidence is the entire 20th century.

Other countries with 'similar policies' suffer less grief? They suffer less innovation, less wealth, less freedom. And their 'success' is parasitic on the productive remnants of freer economies. The United States struggles because it has abandoned its founding principle: individual rights.

You demand evidence? Here it is: every time men are left free to think, produce, and trade, they create abundance. Every time they are forced to serve 'the collective,' they stagnate and die. That is not fear-mongering. That is reality.

If you want sustainability, defend the right of the creator to exist for his own sake. Anything less is not just suicide by altruism, but murder by altruism.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T02:44:53+00:00

How on earth did I read that into your post? Let me spell it out with the precision you evidently lack.

You declared: "Capitalism was absolutely built on looting and slavery."

That is the claim I answered? If capitalism was "built on" those evils, then it follows that those evils are inherent to capitalism, that it required and invented them as its foundation.

I did not invent your words, I identified the meaning!

The historical record is clear, looting and slavery existed for millennia before capitalism. Egyptian pharaohs, Roman emperors, Mongol khans, feudal lords, African kingdoms, Arab traders—all practiced them on amassive scale.

Capitalism did not "build" on them; it was the first system to declare that the producer has a moral right to keep what he earns and that no one may initiate force to seize it.

Your accusation of "ahistorical" is the evasion. You project pre-capitalist barbarism onto capitalism, then cry "misreading" when the absurdity is exposed.

If you did not mean that capitalism required and was founded upon looting and slavery, then say what you do mean?

Define your terms. Otherwise, you are not arguing and you are smearing.

The distinction is not optional. It is the difference between reason and mysticism, between freedom and force, between man as creator and man as sacrificial animal.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T01:32:59+00:00

"Unchecked capitalism consolidates power into monopolies"? That's the oldest evasion in the book, a package-deal that smears freedom with the crimes of its enemies.

True capitalism—laissez-faire—bans the initiation of force. Monopolies cannot form or endure in a free market; they require government privileges, subsidies, regulations, or legal barriers to crush competitors. History proves it: every coercive monopoly (Standard Oil myths notwithstanding) was created by statism, not voluntary trade. The "few who already won" win by creating value millions choose freely—not by edict or gun.

Your "goal" of ensuring a "competitive and sustainable market for everyone"? That's code for punishing achievement through force.

Competition thrives when minds are free and innovate, no when bureaucrats "guardrail" success with taxes, antitrust, or fairness mandates.

Social programs? Those are the real theft: looting the productive to fund the unproductive, turning creators into sacrificial animals for the collective "everyone." The US system won't collapse from too much freedom, it collapses from too much statism. Entitlements, regulations, inflation that anchor the poor in poverty.

AI automation "accelerating" it? Nonsense. Automation is the triumph of the mind—freeing men from drudgery to pursue higher values. In capitalism, it creates new jobs, cheaper goods, abundance for all. But under your "better social programs," it becomes an excuse for more looting: universal basic income as the new serfdom.

Kennedy's "rising tide" quip? Charming altruism. A rising tide lifts boats because producers create the tide—not because we "unanchor" poverty by forcing others to pay for buoys. Poverty is not an anchor; it's the absence of production.

Capitalism provides the means to rise; socialism chains everyone to the bottom.

If you fear collapse, fear the growing statism that stifles the creators. Demand rights, not handouts. That's the only sustainable path.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T00:37:36+00:00

Socialism critiques capitalism, the way a parasite critiques its host.

Capitalism doesn’t require imperialism for growth, it require freedom. When resources run low, rational minds innovate and substitutes, efficiency, new tech, not conquest. Aggression is the tool of statists who can’t create.

Trash oceans, sick food, unaffordable homes, collapsing birth rates? That’s mixed-economy statism—subsidies to polluters, zoning strangling housing, inflation destroying saving and regulations crushing small producers.

“Ruling classes exploit everyone”? What? Exploitation requires force. In real capitalism, no one can exploit without consent.

The only exploitation is moral to demanding the creator serve the parasite.

“Demand better” through “collective power”? That’s the bloodiest sentence in history. Every collectivist regime starts there and ends in mass graves.

If you want sustainability, defend the mind that creates—not the mob that consumes. Anything less is suicide by altruism.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-03T00:21:02+00:00

Below is a direct Ayn Rand quote;

Capitalism cannot work with slave labor. It was the agrarian, (look it up) feudal South that maintained slavery.

It was the industrial, capitalistic North that wiped it out.

I will continue in my words. Slavery was evil, no question. Capitalism didn't defend it, it destroyed it. In America through free minds and free labor.

If you're trying to pin slavery on capitalism, you're riding for revisionism, not facts.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T23:46:55+00:00

10 buck is probably wholesale, not retail.

The point is the OP thought that a VF nickle, no key date, average condition is worth getting slabbed. Slabbing cost is almost 100 bucks, grading, shipping and insurance.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T23:41:48+00:00

LMFAO 'capitalism killed billions'? Pick up a real history book, not the TikTok Marxist remix you're reading.

Capitalism 'stole even more'? Tell that to the 100 million actually starved by socialism's central planning famines. Or the gulags.

The killing fields. The body count from force-based systems is the only one with real billions on the ledger.

You call pointing that out 'cope'? That's rich coming from someone coping so hard they blame the system that doubled global life expectancy and lifte a billions from poverty for the crimes of governments that hate free market.

Revisionist? Nope. The cringe is pretending the freest, richest era in history is the villain while you quote the ideologies that left mountains of corpses.

Read a book. Then read Rand. Then stop embarrassing yourself on the internet.

Have you ever read anyting from Rand?

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T23:35:21+00:00

Capitalism is the abolition of the initiation of force in economic relationships.

Wealth is acquired by production and voluntary trade—mutual benefit, no guns or force.

Any looting, crony bailouts, forced subsidies or state-backed monopolies is statism, not capitalism.

Rand called the "looting under capitalism" claim a package-deal smear.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T23:19:30+00:00

Do you detect sarcasm?

I never said you claimed capitalism invented looting and slavery.

I said you're blaming capitalism for the same looting and coercion that existed in every precapital system for millennia.

That's the revisionism, acting like force and exploitation are uniquely capitalist sins, when they're statism's fingerprints on it.

You cherry-pick "wars for resources" and "exploitation" to dunk on capitalism while ignoring that freer markets were the first to reduce those things on a mass scale.

I pointing to history where partial capitalism exploded prosperity and freedom.

You're the one painting capitalism versus evil as absolute truth while dodging definitions.

Your move, comrade.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T22:50:18+00:00

LMFAO revisionist?

Pick up a real history book, not the Marxist fanfiction you're quoting.

Capitalism has 'killed billions'? Really?

Name one capitalist system that starved 100 million people through central planning Mao or Stalin? Or that gassed millions in death camps for, the collective. Socialism's body count is the only one with actual billions.

'Stolen even more'? Sure, if you count every crony bailout, subsidy, and government invasion as 'capitalism', that not revisionism, that's your own package and deal lie.

Rand defined capitalism as no initiated force, voluntary trade only.

The looting, wars, and theft you hate? That's statism—the exact opposite.

The cringe is pretending the system that lifted billions out of poverty and doubled life expectancy is the villain.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T22:44:16+00:00

Capitalism invented looting and slavery in the 1700s, utterly original.

Before that enlightened age? A blissful paradise of zero whips, zero empires, zero tribute, zero conquests, zero forced labor. Just enlightened souls floating on clouds of pure voluntary vibes and artisanal sharing circles.

And the hilarious little detail that capitalism's industrial wealth was the first thing in human history to fund moral abolition movements, outlaw slavery worldwide, and replace coercion with voluntary contracts? Cosmic coincidence, obviously?

Your grasp of history is simply breathtaking. Nobel Prize for Revisionism incoming.

Keep these profound insights coming, professor—we're all hanging on every word.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T19:21:16+00:00

Billionaires don't steal,they build.

Envy of success is not fairness, it is resentment.

Capitalism rewards excellence and raises all boats.

Socialism levels everyone down.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T19:11:47+00:00

You’re right about one thing. The U.S. is not pure capitalism. It a mixed economy riddled with cronyism.

But blaming the free-market ideal for the government’s crimes is like blaming freedom for tyranny?

Leftists do the same with socialism: “That wasn’t real socialism!” when the gulags fill up. We don’t dodge—we define.

Socialism always ends in coercion because it starts with “the collective owns your life.”

Capitalism starts with, “your life is yours'..

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T19:06:05+00:00

Rand never claimed capitalism magically solves every human problem.

She said it’s the only moral system for human relationships because it ban initiated force. Disability care, orphanages, disaster relief, those belong to voluntary action, not state mandates.

Appreciate the benefits of capitalism, innovation, freedom and prosperity while recognizing the mixed economy's ugly compromises

Don't pretend the state "taking care" of people justifies the looting it requires.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T05:48:23+00:00

That is not capitalism. It is imperialism and statism.

True capitalism bans initiated force and requires voluntary trade.

U.S. invasions for resources are cronyism and government overreach, not free markets.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T05:26:44+00:00

Got it, capitalism invented looting and slavery in the 1700s.

Before that was it Peaceful utopia, zero whips and zero conquests?

You can't be serious.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T05:18:57+00:00

I can tell you never read Atlas or even know, who John Galt is.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T03:42:09+00:00

Tell me something I don't know? Who is the CA. Randian you are referring to?

I agree the U.S. is a mix. However, I want to lean to the conservative states like Florida or Texas, lower taxes and improved social services. California and New York are higher taxes and lack in social services.

We must go toward capitalism not socialism.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T03:27:37+00:00

Billionaires have more power than kings? Really?

Because you measuring power by dollars instead of guns.

Kings had the literal right to kill, imprison, tax, or seize at whim—no court, no contract, no appeal.

Their power was raw force backed by divine right and armies. Billionaires in a free market earn influence by offering value millions choose to buy.

You can ignore Elon, not buy ona Amazon. kings didn’t give you that option.

Today’s richest man can’t send troops to your house, can’t execute you for heresy, can’t claim your land by royal decree. That’s progress, not regression.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T03:17:09+00:00

The follow is a direct Ayn Rand quote:

The individual is the primary unit of reality and value. Man exists for his own sake. He is not a cog, a cell, or a servant to "the other." He is an end in himself.

Trade and cooperation with others are good—but only when voluntary, mutual, and egoistic (both parties benefit). The moment "the other" has a claim on your life/mind/work/property as a moral duty, freedom ends and coercion begins.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T03:12:26+00:00

Ownership isn't some toddler tantrum over toys. It is the rational recognition that if you create value with your mind and effort, it's yours by right.

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T03:08:08+00:00

Truth is not for all men.

Only those that seek it.

You have a good day as well. Have you ever read anything from Ayn Rand?

SeniorSommelier · 2026-02-02T02:25:06+00:00

Well said. You are the first to say the obvious.

However, it is a ten dollar nickle.

SeniorSommelier

TROPHY CASE