Just One Week Left to Bid. The James A. Stack, Sr. Collection, Part I: Silver Dollars and Double Eagles

However, the December 9, 2025 auction of a significant portion of his collection by Stack’s Bowers Galleries should do much to change how the world views Mr. Stack’s numismatic achievements.

Stack was of no familial relation to brothers Joseph B. and Morton Stack (founders of Stack’s Rare Coins in the early 1930s) but was one of their major early clients and lived at the time in the Roosevelt Hotel, just a stone’s throw from the Stack brothers’ flagship midtown New York City gallery.

James A. Stack, Sr., born in 1887, began collecting coins by the late 1930s. At a time when the average life expectancy was only about 60, he set the ambitious goal of building as fine and complete a collection of United States coins as time would allow him. With the help of the Stack brothers as well as a network of coin dealers and auctioneers around the country, James A. Stack, Sr. met with remarkable success, taking advantage of the huge supply of amazing collections that entered the market in the years before, during and immediately following World War II. In short order he built an amazingly complete collection that was also replete with finest knowns and untold rarities.

But that success was obscured not only by the low profile maintained by Mr. Stack during his lifetime, but also because of the way his collections trickled into the marketplace. He gifted portions to his children both before and after his passing, with the intention that his collections would benefit his grandchildren once the youngest of them at his passing was at least 25 years of age. As a result, the James A. Stack, Sr. Collection entered the consciousness of most coin collectors only with the March 1975 Stack’s Rare Coins auction of his United States quarters and half dollars, roughly 25 years after his death in 1951. Auctions bearing Mr. Stack’s name continued through 1995, and the periodic auctions presented over these two decades wowed the numismatic community. But when auctions bearing the name of James A. Stack, Sr. fell silent, most assumed that that his collections had been fully dispersed.

Then, in summer 2025, Stack’s Bowers Galleries announced the sale of a remaining large tranche of Mr. Stack’s collection. Not only was it revealed that a significant portion of his collection remained intact in the hands of his descendants, but also that it included a specimen of a significant rarity unknown to all of numismatics: a 16^th known 1804 dollar, a PCGS Proof-65 CAC CMQ that is the finest known of the Class III type. 

Beyond this phenomenal rarity, a handful of Bust dollars and Morgan dollars is joined by a preponderance of gold coinage in a modern, two-part series of James A. Stack, Sr. Collection auctions expected to realize in excess of $20,000,000. Part I, to take place on Tuesday, December 9 in Griffin Studios at Stack’s Bowers Galleries’ world headquarters in Costa Mesa, California, focuses on silver dollars and double eagles, accompanied by some minor coinages. In addition to the 1804 dollar, Part I also includes a 1794 dollar graded PCGS EF-45 CAC CMQ that is new to the modern census of the first year of the American unit of currency.

Double eagles include both significant circulation strikes but also eight Proofs, beginning with an 1854, the earliest date of Proof double eagle known in a private collection and whose existence was until now unconfirmed in modern times. This PCGS Proof-61 is verified by CMQ and is undoubtedly the same example that appeared at auction in 1934 and 1940 before disappearing into the Stack Collection for nearly a century. Proofs dated 1859, 1864, 1867, 1883, 1887, and 1891 are also offered, and an 1893 graded PCGS Proof-66 Deep Cameo and verified by CAC is not only the finest certified of this date but is also among the finest Proof double eagles of any date.

Not to be overshadowed by this parade of Proofs, dozens of circulation strike double eagles are also available, many of which are among the finest known of their respective dates. A gorgeous, lightly prooflike 1852-O is graded PCGS MS-62 CMQ, while a PCGS EF-40 1856-O is a newcomer to the census of the second rarest New Orleans Mint double eagle. An 1859-S is graded PCGS MS-63 CAC, one of only two graded by PCGS at this level. A sleeper in the Liberty double eagle series, the 1890, is represented by a PCGS MS-65 CAC example, the second finest seen by PCGS and the sole finest verified by CAC.

Saint-Gaudens double eagles in this offering are few, but are highlighted by a remarkable pairing: a 1931 graded PCGS MS-65 CAC CMQ and a 1932 graded PCGS MS-64 CAC CMQ. This duo once shared album real estate with and was acquired in the same 1943 transaction as Mr. Stack’s 1933 double eagle, a coin he was forced to surrender to the Secret Service in 1945, never again to be seen by him or his family.

Session 1 of the December 9 auction includes these and many other remarkable rarities, while Session 2 focuses on more modest coins, allowing all collectors the chance to take home a souvenir from what is one of the 20^th century’s great, unheralded collections of United States coinage.

For more information about the Stack’s Bowers Galleries December 2025 Showcase Auction or to consign your collection, contact the firm by calling 800-458-4646 or by emailing info@stacksbowers.com.