American Eagle Ten Dollar Gold 1986 to Date

The $10 American Gold Eagle holds a quarter-ounce of gold and is one of the four sizes created by the Gold Bullion Coin Act of 1985. Senator J. James Exon's bill passed both houses by voice vote and became Public Law 99-185 on December 17, 1985. It wrote the coin's size into the coinage law, 22.0 mm and 8.483 grams with one-fourth troy ounce of fine gold, and asked for reeded edges, a set of inscriptions, and gold newly mined in the United States. The Treasury could not sell any of the new coins before October 1, 1986.

Because the pre-1933 ten-dollar gold coin was also called an eagle, collectors and dealers usually name this one by its weight, the quarter-ounce Gold Eagle. Its ten-dollar denomination is out of step with the other three sizes, whose face values follow their gold content. The law priced the coins by their gold plus the Mint's costs, not by face value, and bullion coins reach the public only through the Mint's authorized purchasers, who buy them from the Mint in bulk and resell them. The collector coins, proofs and the burnished coins of 2006-2008, are sold by the Mint itself.

• Bullion, issued every year from 1986, has no mint mark. References disagree about where the early coins were made: NGC and PCGS record the bullion coins as Philadelphia strikes, and Wikipedia's West Point Mint article places the 1986 production at West Point. For 2021, Coin World printed the Mint's table showing every gold bullion Eagle struck at West Point, and our 2021 bullion pages carry "(W)" accordingly.
• Proofs began with the 1988 quarter-ounce coin. Philadelphia struck them through 1993, marked P; since 1994 they have been struck at West Point and marked W. The Mint made no gold proofs in 2009.
• Burnished quarter-ounce coins, the Mint's uncirculated collector version, were struck at West Point with a W from 2006 to 2008. After 2008 that finish continued only in the one-ounce size.
• Unfinished proof dies. Twice, in 1999 and 2021, quarter-ounce bullion coins were struck with W proof dies that had not been polished, giving bullion-looking coins with a mint mark.

• 1986: the first quarter-ounce coins, bullion only, dated MCMLXXXVI. The Mint's figure is 726,031.
• 1988-P proof: the first quarter-ounce proof, from Philadelphia, 98,028 by the Mint's figures. The same year the Mint's bullion figure was 49,000.
• 1994-W proof: the first West Point quarter-ounce proof, 48,172.
• 1999-W: bullion coins from unfinished W proof dies, which NGC describes as released by accident. No Mint figure exists; the 1999 bullion figure is 564,232.
• The three burnished years: 2006-W 15,188, 2007-W 12,766 and 2008-W 8,883, by the Mint's figures.
• 2009: 110,000 bullion coins and no collector versions.
• 2016-2018 proofs: adding the four-coin sets to the single coins, the Mint's reports give 24,405 for 2016, 14,507 for 2017 and 12,769 for 2018.
• 2021: Type 1 and Type 2. The Mint's table lists 56,000 Type 1 bullion coins and 108,000 Type 2, both from West Point, and there are West Point proofs with the old and new reverse. In late September a dealer opening a roll of new-reverse bullion coins found that all 40 had a W; these 2021-W Type 2 coins were struck with a W proof obverse die, CoinNews reported.
• 2026-W proof: a one-year issue for the semiquincentennial, carrying the dual date 1776 ~ 2026 and a small Liberty Bell bearing the number 250. The Mint capped the quarter-ounce proof at 21,000 coins, set coins included.

The quarter-ounce coin. At 22 mm it sits between the 16.5 mm $5 and the 27 mm $25. Its reverse states the gold weight and the ten-dollar value.

Roman or Arabic date. Through 1991 the date is in Roman numerals; from 1992 it is written in ordinary figures.

Type 1 reverse. Miley Busiek's design, modeled by Sherl Joseph Winter: a male eagle flies over a nest holding an olive branch, while the female and the young wait below. Look for the initials MB and JW.

Type 2 reverse. Jennie Norris's tight portrait of an eagle's head, modeled by Renata Gordon and initialed JN and RG. The Type 2 coins also carry the reworked obverse, on which the Mint's artists brought back details of Saint-Gaudens's 1907 design from a bronze cast and shifted his initials.

Collector or bullion. Proofs show mirrored fields with a P (1988-1993) or W (from 1994). Burnished coins of 2006-2008 have a W and no mirror. Bullion coins have no mint mark, except the 1999-W and 2021-W coins struck from unfinished proof dies.

• Alloy: 22-karat gold: 91.67% gold with 3% silver and 5.33% copper
• Weight: 8.483 grams
• Gold content: 0.25 troy ounce (about 7.776 grams)
• Diameter: 22.0 mm
• Thickness: 1.83 mm (Wikipedia)
• Edge: reeded
• Face value: ten dollars
• Designers: Augustus Saint-Gaudens (obverse); Miley Busiek (reverse, Type 1, 1986-2021); Jennie Norris (reverse, Type 2, 2021 on)