Unique, "EB on Breast"1787 Brasher Doubloon from
The Gold Rush Collection
Carl Lester
A Chemical Engineer from Georgia Tech, Carl worked for a number of years in the nuclear power industry, before transferring to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. There he led several materials development programs for the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters. When he retired from NASA, he was serving as Assistant Chief of the Nonmetallic Materials Branch.
Carl credits his father with starting his interest in coins, during the silver and gold boom of the early 1980s. Initially specializing in GSA Carson City silver dollars, he soon gravitated to the gold coinage of the Dahlonega Mint. He purchased his first Dahlonega gold piece in 1982 — and has ‘had the fever’ ever since.
Carl focuses as much on the underlying history as he does on the coins. He loves pieces with lustrous, ‘original’ surfaces — and with a story behind them. He owns numerous Dahlonega coins from famous collections. He also collects other coin types, medals, currency and numismatic literature.
Carl has given talks on the Dahlonega Mint at numismatic conventions and at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Among other publications, his Dahlonega Mint-related articles have appeared in Coin World and the Greysheet.