Lucius S. Ruder was born in Hamilton, Ohio, on Sept. 18, 1901, and spent much of his career as a director and part owner of the Cincinnati Sheet Metal and Roofing Company. The catalog’s introduction called him, “A quiet, intellectual, punctilious businessman with deep ancestral roots in Butler County, Ohio,” before adding that he, “was also active in banking circles, acting as a director of The First National Bank of Hamilton, Ohio, where his father before him had been a president and a founder.”

Leading his U.S. gold selections was a 1907 Indian Head, Wire Rim, Periods gold $10 eagle, listed as Judd-1901 in the pattern reference and graded Mint State 64 by Professional Coin Grading Service, that realized $192,000. It features irregular raised stars on the edge, part of experiments at the Philadelphia Mint in 1907 as technicians worked to bring Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ designs to life.

The Wire Rim represented the artist’s original concept. Chief Engraver Charles Barber modified the design for the Rounded Rim type, to allow for better stacking. Barber wrote in a letter that year, “I think that you will agree with me that this change in no way detracts from any claim that may be made for artistic excellence, but on the contrary adds to the appearance of the coin and overcomes the objections mentioned above.”

PCGS created a new, distinct coin number (98850) to identify this pattern type. Researcher Roger Burdette confirmed that these coins, “were struck using a hurriedly made edge collar which has 2 large stars at one end of the tri-partite collar,” with 46 stars in total arranged 15 - 15 - 16 per segment. Stack’s Bowers added, “These are the only true pattern strikings of both the Wire Rim and Rounded Rim Indian eagles with raised stars on the edge,” while noting, “Prior to this offering, the only known specimens were part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution, which includes three examples of the Wire Rim and two of the Rounded Rim.”

Charming Mormon gold

Ruder started collecting with a bang — purchasing an extensive coin collection from the estate of Dr. Philip Holmes, a Chicago surgeon who had built his collection in the 1920s. Ruder then improved on this collection in the following years, eventually building holdings in Washington medals, tokens and world coins, while the base of his holdings were some key U.S. gold coins.

Showcasing the diversity in the collector’s holdings was a historic 1849 Mormon gold $2.50 piece graded PCGS About Uncirculated 50 with a green Certified Acceptance Corp. sticker that brought $84,000. The “Red Book” shares that Brigham Young introduced the coinage system which included $2.50, $5 and $10 gold pieces, “and personally supervised the mint, which was housed in a little adobe building in Salt Lake City.”

Stack’s Bowers characterizes these pieces as crudely produced generally, with striking weakness at the centers due to bulged dies, and most circulated widely. This one featured a soft satin texture, with honey-olive surfaces and “particularly impressive detail in the centers, where the finer features of the all-seeing eye and the clasped hands are still quite crisp despite a bit of high point rub that helps to define the grade.”

Contemporary users valued these $2.50 issues for $2.25 based on their gold content, since, despite the coin’s stated design claims of G.S.L.C.P.G., an abbreviation for Great Salt Lake City Pure Gold, the gold was not pure. However, as the cataloger concludes, despite their metallic deficiencies, “Numismatists have long appreciated them for what they are — an important link to the California Gold Rush, as the gold used to strike the Mormon issues of 1849 to 1850 came, not from the Great Salt Lake Valley, but rather from the rich fields of California.”

Ruder spent time at home with his wife, Louise, where they would study the historical settings of his coins. He also had an extensive collection of American letters and papers. “Were it not for his untimely death in 1965, Mr. Ruder would have amassed a truly great work when his coins were correlated with the financial documents,” the introduction explained, and his love of quality and history was evident in his coins offered at the Rarities Night session.

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