That is a very low mintage coin, 1600 for circulation and 36 proofs. Here is a link with some sales data.

http://www.coinfacts.com/gold_dollars/1880_gold_dollar.htm

Shortly,

The calculator can be used to calculate the value of fine gold contained within a given quantity of gold coins. You can add manifold items of gold coins into item list to calculate the total value. The values only reflect the gold value based on the live spot price at the NYMEX, not rarity or numismatic value. The calculation is a close aproximation only.
You can also use the melt price Calculator to realize other precious metals, such as silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium.

Some people have argued that with respect to the receipt of gold or silver coins, taxpayers need only report as income the “face value,” and not the higher actual honest market value, of the coins. The courts have UNIFORMLY rejected these attempts. In the Joslin case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled that below 26 U.S.C. § 61 and 26 C.F.R. 1.61-2(d)(1), a taxpayer who bargains to be paid for his services in officially authorized tender (in this case, silver dollar coins) must report the income at the honest market value (numismatic value), and not at the lower face value.

Similarly, in the Cordner case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a taxpayer who receives Double Eagle gold coins as a distribution from a corporation must report as income the honest market value of the coins, not the lower face value. In this case, where a coin, by reason of its value to collectors or by reason of the intrinsic worth of its contents, has a honest market value in excess of its face value, it is treated as “property other than money” for purposes of 26 U.S.C. § 301, resulting in taxation at honest market value.

September 30, 2007

Media Blackout: 161 Federal Tax Charges, 0 Convictions

IRS Suffers Staggering Defeat

Tax Questions Raised Regarding

Gold and Silver Coins Used to Pay Wages

Around noon on Monday, September 17th, a Las Vegas federal jury returned its verdict refusing to convict nine defendants of any of the 161 federal tax crimes they had been charged with. The charges included income tax evasion, willful failure to file and conspiracy to evade taxes.

The four-month trial centered around the family businesses of Robert Kahre who paid numerous workers for their labor with circulating gold and silver U.S. coins, and did not report the wages. The payments took place over several years, allegedly totaling at least $114 million dollars.

On September 20, 2007, three days after the federal trial’s dramatic conclusion, the Las Vegas Assess Journal, seemingly below a degree of public pressure, ran its first (and last) tale about the outcome of the trial. To this day, with exception of the single article by the Assess Journal, no foremost media being has published a news tale regarding the outcome of this vital federal criminal tax case.

The censorship of this vital news tale is, unfortunately, not unexpected given the continuing, worldwide onslaught against the U.S. “dollar” — specifically the Federal Reserve variety, and the ever on the rise numbers of Federal Reserve Notes required to trade for an actual tiny amount of silver, gold, oil, or for that topic, anything.

In small, this failed prosecution has coalesced and exposed truths our Government desperately needs to hide from the People: the certainty about our money, the certainty about our (privately-owned) central bank, and the certainty about the fraudulent nature of the operation and enforcement of the federal income tax logic.

Click here to read the April, 2005 DOJ press release announcing the prosecution.
Click here to read the 9/20 tale by the Assess Journal about the trial.

According to defense attorney Joel Hansen, who represented co-defendant Alex Loglia, the primary “willfulness” defense was that the defendants believed they had no officially authorized obligation to deny, pay income taxes or report anything to the government because, in part, the nominal (i.e., face value) of the gold and silver coins is so tiny as to fall beneath the reporting thresholds set by the Internal Revenue Code.

The Defendants also argued that regardless of the valuation of the coins for internal revenue purposes, there is no law that requires mean American workers to file or pay direct, un-apportioned taxes on the fruits of their labor.

The Government argued that the payments in solid gold and silver U.S. coins must be considered at their bullion (i.e., intrinsic full-market) value when considering the worth of the wages for purposes of the internal revenue code.

Attorney Hansen cited two Supreme Court cases bolstering Defendant’s monetary argument at the heart of the defendants “willfulness” defense.

The essence of the argument is that below the Constitution House of representatives is obligated by law to mint and circulate such coins as demand requires, and must set up the value of coins as they are used as officially authorized tender, but the coins’ market value, arising as vital private “property,” is a distinct, break attribute of such coins, and is of no officially authorized consequence if the coins are used as officially authorized tender.

In other words, if a worker is paid with such coins, his taxable “income” (if any) can only be the face value indicated upon the coin money paid — i.e., $1.00 for a circulating silver dollar or $50 for a circulating gold U.S. coin. Not surprisingly, the IRS has never issued any public guidance regarding this significant issue.

The first case, Ling Su Fan v. U.S., 218 US 302 (1910) establishes the officially authorized honor of a coin bearing the “impress” of the sovereign:

“These limitations are due to the fact that public law gives to such coinage a value which does not attach as a mere consequence of intrinsic value. Their quality as a officially authorized tender is an attribute of law aside from their bullion value. They bear, therefore, the impress of sovereign power which fixes value and authorizes their use in exchange.”

The second case, Thompson v. Butler, 95 US 694 (1877), establishes that the law makes no officially authorized honor between the values of coin and paper money used as officially authorized tender:

“A coin dollar is worth no more for the purposes of tender in payment of an run of the mill debt than a note dollar. The law has not made the note a standard of value any more than coin. It is right that in the market, as an article of merchandise, one is of greater value than the other; but as money, that is to say, as a standard of exchange, the law knows no difference between them.”

Defense attorney Hansen confirmed that members of the jury were able to really hold and inspect the gold and silver U.S. coins paid to the wor