The American Silver Eagle grew out of a fight over the government's silver. From the 1970s, administrations wanted to sell silver held in the Defense National Stockpile, and mining-state legislators opposed them. Each sale, and even each announcement of one, pushed the silver price down. Senator James McClure of Idaho proposed several times that any silver sold should go out as coins instead. In 1985 he attached that idea, as the Liberty Coin Act, to the bill for the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island commemoratives. President Reagan signed it as Public Law 99-61 on July 9, 1985.
The law fixed the coin's specifications: 40.6 mm, 31.103 grams, .999 fine silver, a reeded edge, Liberty on the obverse and an eagle on the reverse. For the obverse the Mint revived Adolph A. Weinman's Walking Liberty from the 1916-1947 half dollar. John Mercanti designed a heraldic eagle for the reverse. Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III struck the first coin at the San Francisco Assay Office on October 29, 1986, and sales began on November 24, 1986.
The Mint does not sell bullion coins to the public. It sells them in bulk to a network of authorized purchasers, who resell them, so the yearly bullion figures are the Mint's sales figures. Proofs were offered from the first year, and later the Mint added burnished, reverse proof and enhanced versions for collectors. When the stockpile ran low, a 2002 law let the Mint buy silver on the open market.
Heavy bullion demand from 2008 squeezed the collector coins. The Mint rationed bullion coins to its dealers, and in 2009 it made no proof or burnished coins at all. A law signed on December 14, 2010 let the Treasury strike collector versions even when bullion demand was unmet.
In 2021 the reverse changed. Emily Damstra's design of an eagle landing on a branch replaced Mercanti's heraldic eagle partway through the year, and the obverse was refreshed with Weinman's monogram added. Coins with the old reverse are called Type 1 and those with the new one Type 2.
