Watch List notes:

TIERRA DEL FUEGO: AV gramo, 1889, KM-Tn3, TIERRA DEL FUEGO / POPPER, date below // EL PARAMO / UN GRAMO / AU 364 AG 132, a pick and hammer at center, with dotted background representing mineral soil either side, PCGS graded AU58. Julius Popper (1857-93) was a Romanian-born adventurer and a central figure in the Tierra del Fuego gold rush in the late 1880's. A mining engineer by trade and a charismatic figure by many accounts, he led an expedition to the Atlantic coast of the remote island in 1886 and discovered gold dust on the beaches of San Sebastián Bay. Aided by the ongoing speculative frenzy, he set up a mining center on the El Páramo Peninsula and saw a respectable yield of 154 lbs of gold in the first year. The mining operation quickly became his own personal fiefdom, complete with its own militia, stamps and gold coins. Nicknamed the "Dictator of Tierra del Fuego", Popper fought off Chilean poachers and feuded with the provincial governors in the local newspaper. His actions also led to the deaths of many indigenous Selk'nam (Ona) people, with one notorious photograph showing him with a rifle in hand, stepping on the corpse of a Selk'nam man. As yields declined in the following years, Popper departed El Páramo for new adventures but died under mysterious circumstances in Buenos Aires in 1893, and his estate was carved up to pay off more than a dozen creditors. Few traces remain of his one-time mining empire except for a small number of these pioneer gold pieces.

Estimate: 800-1,000 USD