Watch List notes:

Venezuela (struck at the Paris Mint by Barre), gold essai (5 venezolanos), 1875 A, reeded edge, extremely rare, NGC PF 62 Cameo. KM-E20; Stohr-E37; Fr-4a. Lovely satin proof with lightly frosted bust of Bolivar on obverse and national arms on reverse, strong die-polish lines inhabiting brightly lustrous fields, perhaps the faintest hint of high-point friction but really not enough to keep this from higher grade in our opinion. This essai is a keystone in Venezuelan numismatics, from a minuscule mintage of ten coins, of which the positive locations of all (or almost all) are known--four in private hands, presumably four in museums (including the Banco Central and Banco de Maracaibo in Venezuela), plus one buried in the cornerstone of a statue of Bolivar in Caracas, and now the present piece, which has never been auctioned before. The only examples auctioned publicly since 1954 have been Farouk-Pittman (Akers auction of August 1999, lot 3691) and Clapp-Eliasberg-Millennia (Goldberg auction of May 2008, lot 1211), neither of which is the present coin.

Estimate: $30000 - $45000