Indian Head Quarter Eagles 1908-1929

President Theodore Roosevelt began pressing for better-looking American coins in 1904, and the Mint hired the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to give new designs to the four gold coins and the cent. Saint-Gaudens died in August 1907 having finished only the $10 and $20 designs. The Mint then planned to shrink his double eagle design onto the $2.50 and $5 pieces, but Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber struggled to fit the required legends on such small coins.

A different idea came from Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow, a Boston friend of the President. In January 1908 he wrote to Roosevelt that he was working with the Boston sculptor Bela Lyon Pratt on a coin whose design would be sunk below a flat surface. Such a coin would stack evenly and protect its design from wear. CoinWeek notes that Bigelow had admired Egyptian reliefs of this kind. At a White House lunch on April 3, 1908, Roosevelt and Bigelow won over Mint Director Frank Leach, who dropped the double eagle plan. Pratt based his obverse on Saint-Gaudens's $10 piece but used a Native American man rather than Liberty, and he adapted Saint-Gaudens's standing eagle for the reverse. Barber then reworked the models, to Pratt's great annoyance.

The new quarter eagles reached circulation in early November 1908. Within weeks the Philadelphia dealer Samuel Chapman wrote to the President that the sunken design would collect dirt and germs, would be easy to counterfeit, would not stack, and showed an Indian who looked "emaciated." Bigelow answered him in a letter, and the design stayed.

Leach planned for the quarter eagle to be coined only at Philadelphia, and it was until Denver struck the 1911-D. Small gold pieces were popular as Christmas presents, bought from banks in December. Production stopped after 1915: banknotes were spreading after the Federal Reserve opened in 1913, and World War I drew gold out of circulation. When demand for gift coins returned, the Treasury still held its prewar stock, so the next quarter eagles were the 1925-D, followed by Philadelphia coins from 1926 to 1929. The Depression ended demand, and none were struck after 1929.

In 1933 President Franklin Roosevelt stopped the Treasury from paying out gold coin, and Executive Order 6102 of April 5 required gold coins to be turned in, with exceptions for small amounts and for coins of special value to collectors. Coins never released, and many that came back from banks and the public, were melted in the mid-1930s.

Obverse. A Native American man faces left, wearing a feathered war bonnet. LIBERTY runs across the top, 13 stars sit along the edge (six left, seven right), and the date is at the bottom with Pratt's initials BLP just above it. Every element is cut into the surface, so the highest points of the coin are its flat fields.

Reverse. A standing eagle faces left, its feet on a sheaf of arrows that an olive branch twines through. The legend across the top reads UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, the value 2 1/2 DOLLARS is at the bottom, and the two mottoes, IN GOD WE TRUST and E PLURIBUS UNUM, fill the fields beside the eagle.

Mint mark. On the reverse, left of the arrowheads, and raised rather than sunk. D (Denver) is the only one; Philadelphia coins have none.

Things that cause confusion.

• Liberty Head or Indian Head. NGC's Liberty Head quarter eagle listings end with 1907, so every quarter eagle dated 1908 or later is an Indian Head. (The half eagle is different: both designs carry the date 1908.)
• Half eagle or quarter eagle. The $5 piece has the same design at 21.6 mm and says FIVE DOLLARS. The quarter eagle is 18 mm.
• Added mint marks. CoinWeek reports Philadelphia 1911 quarter eagles with a D added and a 1914-D with its date recut to read 1911. A genuine D is raised and sits just left of the arrowheads.
• Weak D on the 1911-D. Many genuine coins have a faint D. NGC lists Strong D and Weak D coins separately.
• Die clashes. NGC notes that many 1908 coins show heavy clash marks, which can be mistaken for signs of a counterfeit.

• 1911-D: 55,680 struck at Denver, by CoinWeek's and USA Coin Book's figures. The coin is often faked by adding a D to a Philadelphia 1911, and genuine pieces come with a strong or a weak mint mark.
• 1914: 240,000 struck at Philadelphia, beside 448,000 of the 1914-D.
• 1925-D: 578,000 struck at Denver, the first quarter eagles after ten years without any.
• 1908: 564,821 struck in the first year of the sunken design.
• 1929: 532,000 struck in the last year of the denomination.
• Proofs, 1908-1915: Philadelphia struck proofs every year from 1908 to 1915, from 236 in 1908 and 682 in 1910 down to 100 in 1915. CoinWeek describes them as matte proofs. NGC says collectors disliked the dark finish, and CoinWeek adds that many went unsold and were melted.

• Composition: 90% gold, 10% copper
• Weight: 4.18 grams
• Gold content: about 0.1209 troy ounce
• Diameter: 18 mm
• Edge: reeded
• Designer: Bela Lyon Pratt

The weight, fineness and size are the same as those of the Liberty Head quarter eagle it replaced. Because the fields are the highest part of the coin, Indian Head quarter eagles are thinner than earlier quarter eagles, and the Mint found that automatic sorting machines could not reliably separate them from the older coins.