American Eagle Fifty Dollar Gold 1986 to Date

The one-ounce American Gold Eagle is the coin the Gold Bullion Coin Act of 1985 describes most fully. Besides fixing its size, 32.7 mm and 33.931 grams with one troy ounce of fine gold, Public Law 99-185 spelled out its designs: a figure symbolizing Liberty on one side and, on the other, a family of eagles, the male in flight with an olive branch over a nest that holds the female and her hatchlings. The act was signed on December 17, 1985, and barred sales before October 1, 1986.

The act set the price at the gold's market value plus production and distribution costs. The Mint does not retail its bullion coins; it sells them in bulk to authorized purchasers, who pass them on to dealers and investors, and the Mint's yearly bullion figure counts the coins of each date sold that way. Collectors buy the proof, burnished and reverse proof coins straight from the Mint, alone or in sets.

• Bullion one-ounce coins, unmarked, appear for every date from 1986. The striking mint of the early ones is disputed: NGC's records say Philadelphia, Wikipedia's West Point Mint entry places 1986 there, and Greysheet calls West Point probable (search). The Mint's figures for 2021, printed by Coin World, place all of that year's gold bullion coins at West Point.
• Proofs of the one-ounce coin have been struck at West Point with a W since the first year, 1986, when this was the only size offered in proof. None were made in 2009.
• Burnished one-ounce coins, which the Mint markets as uncirculated, carry a W; they came out in 2006-2008, were skipped in 2009 and 2010, and have been issued yearly since 2011.
• Reverse proof: one issue, the 2006-W coin from the 20th Anniversary set.
• Sets: the one-ounce proof also went into the four-coin proof sets, the 1995 10th Anniversary set and the 1997 Impressions of Liberty set, and the burnished coin into a 2006 gold-and-silver anniversary set.

• 1986-W proof: the first Gold Eagle proof, struck at West Point while the depository there was still two years from becoming a mint. The Mint's figure is 446,290. The 1986 bullion coin, dated MCMLXXXVI, sold 1,362,650.
• 2006-W reverse proof: sold only in the three-coin 20th Anniversary set with a proof and a burnished coin; 9,996 sets were sold against a limit of 10,000.
• 2009: no collector coins at all; the Mint sold 1,493,000 bullion coins of that date.
• 2012-W burnished: 5,829 coins, the Mint's final audited figure.
• 2017 and 2018 proofs: once the set coins are added to the singles, the Mint's sales reports come to 19,046 for 2017 and 15,564 for 2018.
• 2020-W V75: a proof marking 75 years since World War II ended, with a V75 privy and a limit of 1,945 coins. The same year West Point also struck a burnished coin, 6,284 by the Mint's last report.
• 2021: the reverse changed during the year. The Mint's table gives 456,500 Type 1 bullion coins and 665,500 Type 2, both struck at West Point. There are proofs of Type 1 and Type 2, but the burnished coin was made only with the new reverse.
• 2026-W proof: a one-year version for the 250th anniversary of independence. It carries two dates, 1776 ~ 2026, and a small Liberty Bell privy showing the number 250.

Size. At 32.7 mm the one-ounce coin is the biggest of the four Gold Eagles; its reverse reads 1 OZ. FINE GOLD and 50 DOLLARS.

Date. Roman numerals through 1991, Arabic figures from 1992.

Reverse. Type 1, 1986 into 2021: Miley Busiek's family of eagles, modeled for the coin by Sherl Joseph Winter. Type 2, from 2021: Jennie Norris's eagle head, modeled by Renata Gordon. With the new reverse came a reworked Liberty side, drawn from Saint-Gaudens's original bronze cast, and a variation in the reeding that the Mint describes as a security feature.

Finish. Proof: mirror fields, frosted relief, W. Reverse proof (2006 only): the two surfaces swapped, also W. Burnished: W on a coin without the proof surface. Bullion: no letter.

• Fineness: .9167 (22 karat), the alloy being 3% silver and the remainder copper
• Total weight: 33.931 grams
• Gold in the coin: 1 troy ounce, about 31.10 grams
• Size: 32.7 mm across, 2.87 mm thick (thickness from Wikipedia)
• Edge: reeded
• Value stated on the coin: 50 dollars
• Artists: Saint-Gaudens's Liberty on the front; Busiek's eagle family (Type 1) or Norris's eagle head (Type 2) on the back