As i said in the other thread, they're gold ( probably 22 carat ) pioneer / frontier fractional dollars.
There are many variants and although these have been damaged, you should still have them checked. Likely a collector will pay several times more than their weight in gold.
Yours have the Aztec indian head on them
These sparkling gold 25¢, 50¢, and $1 coins were made over a long period of time, mostly from about 1852 until the 1880s. Those of the early years undoubtedly served as small change in the channels of commerce while at the same time providing interesting souvenirs of the Gold Rush. Later issues were mostly made as souvenirs and were highly prized by visitors to California and, in time, were avidly collected by numismatists.
When employee James Marshall discovered a few flakes of gold in the tail race of Sutter's Mill on California's American River on January 24, 1848, little did he dream that his discovery would start a "gold rush" that would bring tens of thousands of Americans and foreigners to what became the land of opportunity. Word spread to the East, including in December of that year when a large deposit of California gold was made at the Philadelphia Mint, and 1848 "CAL." $2.50 pieces were coined from it. The next year the rush was on in full force, and adventurers arrived by sea and land. Almost immediately, a shortage of coins developed. To fill the need, "pinches" of gold dust were used for small transactions, while private firms such as Baldwin, Moffat, Miners Bank, and others produced coins, mostly of denominations from $5 to $20. The profit in making such coins seems to have been tenuous, as a $10 gold coin usually contained over $9.50 worth of precious metal. Had these firms made gold $1 pieces, there would have been no financial advantage due to the work involved.
Stepping into the opportunity were several other entrepreneurs who produced a stream of interesting quarters, half dollars, and dollars by the simple expedient of ignoring the concept of high intrinsic value. Later evaluations of these coins show that many if not most of the early issues (from the 1850s) had melt-down values of 50% to 75% of face value, and ones of later years were sometimes worth only a fraction of the value given on them. The strategy worked, for although such coins were never a part of bulk transactions in which intrinsic value was important, they did circulate readily as pocket change. Moreover, they were more convenient to use and perhaps even worth more than the equivalent "pinch" of gold dust, which was apt to vary widely (sometimes brass filings were used to deceive!).
It is believed that these coins first made their appearance in commerce in 1852. In the August 25, 1852 issue of The Daily Alta California, a news dispatch was reprinted from the pages of the New Orleans Picayune, from a city which was at least a month distant in terms of travel:
"We were shown this morning a gold half dollar, California money, which is so much like the United States gold dollar piece that the best judges would be completely deceived at first glance. The half dollar piece is lighter in color, and somewhat smaller in diameter than the dollar. They are of private issue and have stamped on them, HALF-DOLLAR CALIFORNIA GOLD 1852."
Another event ties these small pieces in with everyday pocket change: On December 2, 1853, the sidewheel steamer Winfield S. Scott sank in heavy seas near Anacapa Island, some 30 miles off the coast of Santa Barbara. On board were 400 passengers, including many army officers heading east, and some $884,861.50 in treasure bound for Panama under Captain Simon F. Blunt, U.S. Navy. More than a century later, a local scuba diver named Glenn E. Miller and some friends located the wreck of the Winfield S. Scott and began salvage operations. On Memorial Day 1969, Miller and other divers including Paul Tizimoulis, publisher of Skin Diver magazine, and Jack McKenney, editor, went to the site. Dick Anderson, who later wrote several articles about the experience, including an account in the September 1969 issue of the Skin Diver, recalled:
"As soon as I hit water I began fanning the sand away from bedrock crevices. In less than five minutes I spotted what had to be a gold coin. It is hard to describe the thrill associated with such an event, but monetarily speaking it would be much like finding a hundred dollar bill in the middle of a field and knowing that there had to be a lot more of them around.
"I picked up the coin and looked at it. Even after 116 years of salty immersion the octagonal coin was in nearly perfect shape and the markings legible: '1 DOLLAR CALIFORNIA GOLD, 1853.' Part of the coin still glistened with the original mint lustre. I swallowed hard and continued fanning. In just moments I had uncovered two more gold coins: an octagonal half dollar and a round gold dollar."
