Liberty Head Double Eagles 1849-1907

The California Gold Rush that began in 1848 sent far more gold to the Mint than before, and Congress answered with two new coins, the gold dollar and a $20 piece. President James K. Polk signed the law on March 3, 1849. The new coin was twice an eagle, so it was called a double eagle, and bankers liked it because it held a large sum in a small space.

Chief Engraver James B. Longacre designed it amid open hostility from Chief Coiner Franklin Peale, whose department ruined his first model and cracked a die while hardening it. Longacre had dies finished in December 1849, but Peale objected that the head was in too high relief to strike properly, and regular coinage did not begin until early 1850. NGC says only two pieces dated 1849 were struck. One is in the Smithsonian and the other has not been traced.

Philadelphia struck double eagles every year from 1850 to 1907, and New Orleans did from 1850 to 1861 and once more in 1879. San Francisco opened in 1854 and in the end struck just over half of all double eagles made from 1850 to 1933. Carson City struck them in most years from 1870 to 1893, and Denver in 1906 and 1907. IN GOD WE TRUST joined the reverse in 1866, and in 1877 the value on the reverse was spelled out as TWENTY DOLLARS. Of all the gold the Mint coined from 1795 to 1933, about 78% went into double eagles.

Many of the coins never stayed in the country. From the 1880s millions were shipped to Europe in cloth bags of 250 to settle international payments, and many that were not melted lay in foreign bank vaults until dealers brought them back. Others went down with ships: the Central America in 1857, the Brother Jonathan and the Republic in 1865, and the Yankee Blade. Salvage from those wrecks has brought thousands of early San Francisco coins back in high grade. Augustus Saint-Gaudens's design replaced the Liberty Head late in 1907.

Obverse. Liberty faces left, her hair drawn back into a bun, wearing a coronet inscribed LIBERTY. Thirteen stars surround her and the date is below. Longacre's initials JBL are on the truncation of the neck.

Reverse. A heraldic eagle with a shield holds an olive branch and arrows. Ribbons on each side read E PLURIBUS and UNUM, and above the eagle is an oval of thirteen stars with rays behind. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA runs around the edge and the value is at the bottom.

Mint mark. Just below the eagle, above the value. O, S, CC and D are the branch mints. Philadelphia coins have no letter.

Telling the types apart.

In 1866 Longacre also gave the shield curved sides and added a ninth leaf to the olive branch. In 1877 William Barber cut the neck at a sharper angle to leave more room for the date and enlarged E PLURIBUS UNUM.

Things that cause confusion.

• 1866-S without the motto. San Francisco kept using its old reverse dies until the motto dies arrived, so 1866-S coins come both ways.
• "LLBERTY." On the coins of 1850 to 1858 the I in LIBERTY was cut over an L, and the second L can be seen under magnification. It shows on coins of all those years, so it is not an error on one coin.
• 1873 Closed 3 and Open 3. The first 1873 date punch had a 3 that could be read as an 8, and the Mint replaced it early in the year. On the Closed 3 the two knobs of the 3 are the same size.
• Saint-Gaudens double eagles. The 1907–1933 $20 coin with a full-length Liberty striding forward is a different series.

• 1849: two were struck from Longacre's 1849 dies. The one that can be traced is in the Smithsonian's National Numismatic Collection.
• 1850-O: 141,000 struck, the first double eagles from New Orleans.
• 1854-O (3,250) and 1856-O (2,250): small New Orleans mintages, which NGC ties to San Francisco's new mint, opened in 1854 much closer to the gold fields. NGC estimates 25 to 35 1854-O coins survive and has traced 23 different 1856-O coins through auction records. One 1856-O is graded as a specimen, though specialists disagree about its status (search).
• 1854-S: 141,468 struck. The first one coined, on April 3, 1854, was struck as a proof and is in the Smithsonian. A couple of hundred came up from the wreck of the Yankee Blade in the late 1970s.
• 1857-S: 970,500 struck. Thousands were aboard the Central America when she sank in a hurricane on September 12, 1857, and recovery from the wreck began in 1988.
• 1861 Paquet reverse: two Philadelphia coins known after the rest were destroyed. The 1861-S Paquet had 19,250 struck before San Francisco got the order to stop.
• 1861-O: 17,741 struck under three authorities, 5,000 for the United States in January, 9,750 for the State of Louisiana and 2,991 for the Confederacy from June.
• 1866-S No Motto: the mintage is given as 120,000 by Garrett and Guth and as 12,000 by Winter and Crum. One turned up in the Saddle Ridge Hoard, found in California in 2013.
• 1870-CC: 3,789 struck in Carson City's first year. NGC estimates 35 to 45 survive.
• 1879-O: 2,325 struck, the only New Orleans double eagles after the Civil War.
• Philadelphia in the 1880s and 1890s. Business strikes fell to 2,199 in 1881, 571 in 1882, 751 in 1885, 1,000 in 1886 and 1,390 in 1891. The 1883 (92), 1884 (71) and 1887 (121) were struck only as proofs.
• 1906-D special strikes: about a dozen struck for presentation when Denver began coining double eagles on April 4, 1906. The 1907-D proof is a single coin, graded PF62 by NGC.

Date varieties include the 1853/2 overdate, the 1854 Small Date and Large Date, and the 1873 Closed 3 and Open 3, which San Francisco also struck (Closed 3, Open 3).

• Composition: 90% gold, 10% copper
• Weight: 516 grains (33.436 grams)
• Gold content: 0.9675 troy ounce
• Diameter: 34 mm
• Edge: reeded
• Designer: James B. Longacre; reverse revised in 1866 by Longacre and in 1877 by William Barber

Proofs were struck at Philadelphia for collectors from 1858 on. The 1854-S, the 1856-O specimen, the 1906-D presentation pieces and the 1907-D are the branch-mint exceptions.