1838 Liberty Head Eagle (First Year)

Thirty-four years without an eagle

The Mint Act of 1792 authorized the eagle, a ten-dollar gold coin, as the largest United States denomination. Its circulation coinage stopped in 1804, during Thomas Jefferson's administration. At the legal ratio of 15 to 1 between silver and gold, United States gold coins were worth more as metal abroad, and they were exported and melted.

The Coinage Act of 1834 moved the ratio to 16 to 1 and lowered the fineness of standard gold from about .9167 to about .899. A tiny number of eagles, probably four or five Proofs, were struck in 1834 from newly made dies dated 1804, for diplomatic presentation sets such as those prepared for the King of Siam and the Sultan of Muscat. None were made for circulation.

On July 27, 1838, Treasury Secretary Levi Woodbury told Mint Director Robert M. Patterson to resume coining eagles as soon as practicable. Patterson answered three days later: "We shall spare no pains to make our chief coin worthy of the Mint." In 1838 Congress authorized a lighter, smaller eagle, so the coin would be a new design rather than a revival of the old one.

Christian Gobrecht

Christian Gobrecht was born December 23, 1785, in Hanover, Pennsylvania. He apprenticed in Manheim, engraved ornamental clockwork in Baltimore and moved to Philadelphia in 1811, where he worked for an engraving firm and invented a medal ruling machine.

He joined the Mint in September 1835 as a second engraver after Chief Engraver William Kneass suffered a stroke, and he did much of the Mint's design work from then on. He was formally appointed chief engraver on December 21, 1840, after Kneass died. Besides the eagle, he designed the Gobrecht dollar, the Seated Liberty design used on silver coins until 1891, and the Liberty Head designs later used on the quarter eagle and half eagle. He died in Philadelphia on July 23, 1844.

For Liberty's portrait, one account says Gobrecht drew on Benjamin West's 1809 painting Omnia Vincit Amor. Liberty faces left, wearing a coronet inscribed LIBERTY, with her hair gathered into a bun and tied with a beaded cord, inside 13 six-pointed stars. On the reverse, an eagle with a shield holds three arrows and an olive branch, surrounded by UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, with TEN D. below.

December 1838

James Ross Snowden, a later Mint director and the first to write about the coin as a collector, recorded in 1861 that the new eagle "made its first appearance on the twenty-sixth of December" with 6,700 pieces, and that on December 31 the chief coiner delivered 500 more, for 7,200 in all. Another account dates the start of production to December 6, 1838. The sources do not reconcile the two dates, but both put the entire mintage in the last weeks of the year.

New Mint branches were part of the gold story that year: the New Orleans Mint struck its first coins on March 8, 1838. The eagle, though, was a Philadelphia coin in its first year; New Orleans did not strike eagles until 1841.

It was also the year the Trail of Tears began, that Samuel Morse demonstrated the telegraph in New Jersey, and that Frederick Douglass escaped slavery.

A portrait used for barely two years

Snowden called the 1838 design a "pattern" and noted it was carried over to the half eagle of 1839 and the quarter eagle of 1840. On the eagle itself, Gobrecht revised Liberty's portrait in 1839. On the 1838 coins and some 1839 coins, sweeping strands of hair are pulled back into the bun and partly cover the back of the coronet, and Liberty's neck is distinctly curved. The revised portrait gave her hair a more realistic look, and the reverse lettering was made smaller in 1839. That leaves the 1838 as the first year of a two-year type, a large part of its appeal.

Most surviving 1838 eagles grade Very Fine to Extremely Fine and show heavy circulation, with abraded surfaces and clusters of marks in the left obverse field. One longtime specialist estimated in 2007 that 50 to 75 survive: 15-25 in Very Fine or lower, 23-31 in Extremely Fine, 10-15 in About Uncirculated and 2-4 in Uncirculated. A grading service's current estimate is about 85 in all grades and about five in Mint State, with none in MS65 or better.

The specifications differ slightly by source. One grading service lists 16.70 grams, 26.80 mm and an alloy of 90 percent gold and 10 percent copper. Another reference gives 16.72 grams, 27.00 mm and .900 gold with .100 silver. A general reference lists 258 grains (16.7 grams), .900 fine, with 0.48375 troy ounce of pure gold. All agree on a reeded edge and a weight and diameter well below the pre-1834 eagle.

Three Proofs are recorded: one in the Smithsonian, graded PR63, and two graded PCGS PR65, one ex-Cardinal Spellman and one ex-Pittman.

The finest coins and what they brought

The ex-Pittman Proof sold for $550,000 in 1998. Among circulation strikes, two coins grade PCGS MS63. One sold at auction for $63,250 in 2002. The other, from the Freedom Collection, sold at auction for $115,000 in January 2007, still the auction record for a circulation-strike 1838 eagle. The same coin, by its PCGS certificate number, reappeared in the D. Brent Pogue Collection and sold at auction in May 2016 for $105,750.

Below the top, prices fall quickly. A PCGS AU58 sold for $41,125 in August 2014, and an AU58+ brought $52,800 in August 2021. Since 2020, other certified About Uncirculated coins have sold between $11,400 and $25,200, Extremely Fine coins between $6,300 and $20,400, and coins with cleaning or repair, which grading services encapsulate with a Details grade, for $4,080 to $26,400.

Even a worn example is the first coin of a series that ran, with a motto added in 1866, until 1907, and a denomination that remained in production until gold coinage was halted by executive order in 1933.

The numbers

Mintage

7,200 (6,700 first delivered, plus 500 on December 31, 1838)

Mint

Philadelphia (no mintmark)

Designer

Christian Gobrecht

Weight

16.70 g per one grading service; 16.72 g per another reference; 258 grains

Diameter

26.80 mm per one grading service; 27.00 mm per other references

Composition

90% gold; the balance is given as copper by one source and silver by another

Pure gold

0.48375 troy ounce

Edge

Reeded

Survivors

About 85 in all grades and 5 in Mint State (grading service estimate); 50-75 (dealer estimate, 2007)

Proofs

3 recorded

Timeline

1. 1792

   The Mint Act authorizes the eagle as the largest United States denomination.

2. 1804

   Eagle coinage for circulation stops.

3. 1834

   The Coinage Act lowers the gold standard; probably four or five Proof eagles dated 1804 are struck for diplomatic sets.

4. Sep 1835

   Christian Gobrecht joins the Mint as second engraver.

5. Jul 27, 1838

   Treasury Secretary Levi Woodbury orders eagle coinage resumed.

6. Dec 26, 1838

   The new eagle first appears, 6,700 pieces, by Mint Director Snowden's later account; another source dates production from December 6.

7. Dec 31, 1838

   Another 500 eagles are delivered, completing the mintage of 7,200.

8. 1839

   Gobrecht revises Liberty's portrait and reduces the reverse lettering, ending the 1838 type during that year.

9. Dec 21, 1840

   Gobrecht is appointed chief engraver.

10. 1841

    New Orleans strikes its first eagles.

11. Jul 23, 1844

    Gobrecht dies in Philadelphia.

12. 1861

    Mint Director James Ross Snowden publishes the first collector's account of the 1838 eagle.

13. 1866

    The motto IN GOD WE TRUST is added to the eagle's reverse.

14. 1907

    The Liberty Head eagle ends, replaced by the Saint-Gaudens Indian Head design.

15. 1998

    The ex-Pittman Proof 1838 eagle sells for $550,000.

16. Jan 2007

    The Freedom Collection MS63 sells at auction for $115,000, the auction record for a circulation strike.

17. May 2016

    The same MS63 coin sells at auction from the D. Brent Pogue Collection for $105,750.

18. Aug 2021

    A PCGS AU58+ sells at auction for $52,800.

The world in 1838

• Jan 1838

  Samuel Morse publicly demonstrates the electric telegraph at Morristown, New Jersey.

• Mar 8, 1838

  The New Orleans Mint strikes its first coins.

• May 25, 1838

  The forced removal of the Cherokee, the Trail of Tears, begins.

• Jun 12, 1838

  Iowa Territory is established.

• Aug 18, 1838

  The United States Exploring Expedition sails from Hampton Roads, Virginia.

• Sep 3, 1838

  Frederick Douglass escapes slavery, boarding a train in Maryland disguised as a sailor.

• Oct 27, 1838

  Missouri's governor issues the order expelling Mormons from the state.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1838 Liberty Head Eagle (First Year) is number 71 of 100 in the coins entries of the FLOAT 100. 96 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (42 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• No eagle was struck for circulation between 1804 and 1838; the few made in 1834 were Proofs from new dies dated 1804, for gifts to foreign rulers.
• The entire 1838 mintage of 7,200 coins was delivered in the last weeks of December.
• Gobrecht designed the coin as second engraver; he was not named chief engraver until December 1840.
• Liberty's 1838 portrait, with hair sweeping over the back of the coronet, was replaced in 1839, so the 1838 is the first year of a two-year type.
• The finest-known 1838 eagle sold for $115,000 in 2007 and for $105,750 when it reappeared in 2016.
• Over the denomination's history, every federal mint struck eagles except the two Southern branches that coined only gold, Dahlonega and Charlotte.
• New Orleans struck its first coins in March 1838, but the eagle was a Philadelphia-only coin until 1841.