Watch List notes:

Tierra del Fuego (struck in Buenos Aires), Argentina, gold 1 gramo, Popper, 1889, large letters, NGC MS 62. Janson-7; KM-Tn5. Ample luster with traces of light rainbow toning, a one-year type (highly sought by numismatists) struck by Romanian-Jewish gold-prospector Julius Popper using gold dust found on the beach of El Paramo in the Patagonian peninsula. Popper's expedition, under the name of Gold-Washing Company of the South (Lavaderos de Oro del Sud), achieved a sort of autonomy, with its own army and coins and stamps, as well as a notorious "wild west" atmosphere replete with crime and abuse of natives. Popper died suddenly and mysteriously in 1893.

Estimate: $2000 - $3000