1879 Flowing Hair Stella ($4 Gold)

A coin for a world currency that never came

On January 3, 1879, John A. Kasson, the American minister to Austria and a former chairman of the House Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, wrote to the State Department. The United States, he said, had no coin close to the French 20-franc piece, the gold coin best known in Europe. A new American coin of exactly that value, replacing the three-dollar piece, could become a standard for customs accounts and perhaps for international trade. The Austrian 8-florin piece and several other European gold coins were worth about $3.88.

The letter went to the Treasury and then to the coinage committee, chaired by Representative Alexander Stephens of Georgia, the former vice president of the Confederacy. Stephens admired Dr. William Wheeler Hubbell, a Philadelphia patent lawyer and metric-system advocate who held the patent on goloid, an alloy of gold, silver and copper. Historian Roger W. Burdette, writing in the Journal of Numismatic Research in 2015, argues that Hubbell, not Kasson, was the real force behind the coin. Hubbell proposed a four-dollar piece as a round-number stand-in for Kasson's $3.88, one fifth of his own metric twenty-dollar pattern, with its metal content spelled out in grams. The committee reported favorably on March 3, 1879.

The name came from the star on the reverse. Stella means star, and an early account explained the choice as an analogy to the eagle, both being national emblems on American coins. But the coin was only a loose match for the European pieces it was meant to mirror: it weighed 7 grams against the 20-franc piece's 6.45 grams. Kasson made no further contribution, Congress never approved the stella, and no business-strike coins were ever made.

The Barbers' Liberty

Two portraits of Liberty were prepared for the stella in 1879. George T. Morgan, designer of the silver dollar of 1878, cut a Liberty with braided hair coiled on top of her head. Charles E. Barber cut the Flowing Hair version, with long loose locks and a headband reading LIBERTY. Barber's design was taken almost directly from a pattern half eagle of 1878 (Judd-1574) designed by his father, William Barber.

Around the portrait, separated by stars, runs the coin's own recipe: 6 G .3 S .7 C 7 GRAMS. The reverse is dominated by a large five-pointed star carrying ONE STELLA and 400 CENTS. E PLURIBUS UNUM and DEO EST GLORIA are set between the star's points, and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and FOUR DOL. run around the rim. The D in UNITED is sharply doubled.

The Flowing Hair design is the only stella struck in meaningful numbers. Of the four gold stellas, 1879 and 1880 in Flowing Hair and Coiled Hair, a specialist cited in a 2026 sale catalog estimates fewer than 20 survivors for each of the other three issues.

Samples for Congress, and a scandal

The stellas were made for lawmakers to examine, and lawmakers wanted them. Sale catalogs citing the documentary record say 425 examples were struck for three-coin sets that also held an 1879 goloid dollar and an 1879 goloid metric dollar, and that the sets were offered to members of Congress at their bullion cost. Accounts of the details differ. One recent catalog dates the striking from October 4, 1879, to May 10, 1880, and gives the price as $6.10 a set; another cites Burdette for December 1879 to May 1880. An older account by David Akers says 15 coins were struck in 1879 and another 400 early in 1880 from the same dated dies, offered at the production cost of $6.50.

Collectors and dealers were angry when they learned that congressmen and their friends were buying coins the public could not. Akers records that the dealer S.K. Harzfeld learned from Mint Superintendent A.L. Snowden that 150 of the coins were still in the Mint's vaults as late as October 1880. Many stellas were handed on to people who did not collect coins, and even into the late 20th century some were used as jewelry or cufflinks. A widely repeated but unsourced story holds that some ended up around the necks of madams who ran Washington bordellos.

The stella arrived in a year when American money was being reset. On January 1, 1879, the Specie Resumption Act took effect and the greenback was valued the same as gold for the first time since the Civil War. That October, Thomas Edison tested his first practical electric light bulb.

How to read one

The paperwork called for the coins to be struck in Hubbell's goloid alloy, and the coin's own legend says so. But most survivors that have been tested turned out to be standard .900 fine coinage gold; one catalog knew of only two examples confirmed as goloid. One theory holds that about 25 early pieces were struck in goloid and the rest on shaved-down half eagle blanks. Specialists still argue about it.

Almost every example shows fine parallel lines, called striations, across the surface, especially on Liberty's head. The most common explanation is that the blanks were shaved or rolled down to size. Akers noted that the later pieces are usually recognizable by these adjustment marks and that they do not always weigh the official 103.2 grains, so some have been sold as rare early 'originals' when they were not.

Condition varies widely. Because many were carried, mounted or worn, a large share are impaired. Mirror-like proofs with frosted portraits, graded Cameo or Deep Cameo, are much scarcer. At one major grading service the finest regular proof is a single PR67+, and the auction record for the issue in any designation is $840,000, for a PCGS PR67 Deep Cameo in April 2024.

The coin behind this entry

The FLOAT 100 entry is a proof graded PR66 Cameo with a CAC endorsement. The specific coin whose sale anchors the entry was certified by CAC Grading (CACG), not by PCGS. Its catalog description notes the usual softness on the hair at Liberty's temple and only faint traces of striations, nearly horizontal and angling slightly down from left to right across the portrait.

Its auction history can be traced through four sales. It sold for $253,000 in May 2007 from the Palakika Collection, for $195,500 in January 2009 after passing through the Scott Rudolph Collection, and for $223,250 in August 2012. On May 9, 2024, in its CACG holder, it sold at auction during the Central States convention for $324,000.

That price stood out. In the same month an NGC PF66 Cameo without a CAC sticker sold for $216,000. A PCGS PR66 Cameo with a CAC sticker brought $264,000 that August, and a PCGS PR66 with a CAC sticker sold for $281,250 in September 2024. In 2026 a second CACG PR66 Cameo came to auction, and its catalog called the 2024 coin directly comparable in quality and eye appeal.

A failed coin that became a trophy

Technically the stella is a pattern, an experimental piece and not a circulating coin. Like the 1856 Flying Eagle cent and the 1836 Gobrecht dollar, though, it is collected alongside regular U.S. coinage, and it is listed among the 100 Greatest U.S. Coins.

Estimates of how many survive vary. Akers guessed that at least 300 to 350 remained. A specialist quoted in a 2026 catalog estimates 400 to 500, and a leading grading service's current survival estimate is 243 in all grades. Whatever the true number, there are enough that the 1879 Flowing Hair is the stella a collector can realistically own, while the other three are true rarities. In 2026 one collection offered all four gold stellas in a single sale. Its 1879 Flowing Hair, an NGC PR65 Cameo, brought $201,300, and the four together realized $3,968,050.

The numbers

Mintage

425 documented; estimates run from about 500 to 750

Known survivors

Estimates differ: 243 (current grading-service estimate), at least 300-350 (Akers), 400-500 (Dannreuther)

Weight

7.00 grams

Diameter

22 mm

Stated composition

86% gold, 4% silver, 10% copper (goloid); most tested survivors are .900 fine gold

Edge

Reeded

Designer

Charles E. Barber, after William Barber's 1878 half eagle pattern

Reference numbers

Judd-1635, Pollock-1833, JD-1; rarity 3

Mint

Philadelphia (no mintmark)

Timeline

1. 1878

   William Barber designs the pattern half eagle (Judd-1574) whose portrait his son Charles adapts for the stella.

2. Jan 3, 1879

   John A. Kasson writes to the State Department proposing a gold coin equal to the 20-franc piece.

3. Mar 3, 1879

   The House coinage committee reports favorably on the four-dollar stella.

4. Oct 4, 1879

   Striking begins, according to one catalog's reading of the record; another source cites December 1879.

5. May 10, 1880

   The documented run of 425 Flowing Hair stellas ends.

6. Oct 1880

   About 150 stellas are reported still in the Mint's vaults.

7. Jun 5, 2004

   An example sells at auction for $60,375.

8. May 2007

   The coin behind this entry sells for $253,000 from the Palakika Collection.

9. Jan 2009

   The same coin sells for $195,500.

10. Aug 2012

    The same coin sells for $223,250.

11. 2015

    Roger W. Burdette publishes research arguing that William W. Hubbell drove the stella project.

12. Jan 5, 2023

    A PCGS PR67 brings $600,000, the record for a non-Cameo proof.

13. Apr 3, 2024

    A PCGS PR67 Deep Cameo sells for $840,000, the issue's auction record.

14. May 9, 2024

    The coin behind this entry, now CACG PR66 Cameo, sells for $324,000.

15. Apr 29, 2026

    The Presidio Collection's NGC PR65 Cameo sells for $201,300 in a sale offering all four gold stellas.

The world in 1879

• Jan 1, 1879

  The Specie Resumption Act takes effect; the greenback is valued the same as gold for the first time since the Civil War.

• Feb 15, 1879

  President Rutherford B. Hayes signs a bill allowing women attorneys to argue before the Supreme Court.

• Feb 22, 1879

  Frank Woolworth opens his first five-and-ten store in Utica, New York.

• Mar 3, 1879

  Congress creates the U.S. Geological Survey.

• Jul 8, 1879

  The Jeannette Expedition leaves San Francisco for the North Pole.

• Oct 22, 1879

  Thomas Edison tests his first practical electric light bulb.

• Dec 31, 1879

  Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public at Menlo Park, New Jersey.

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, 1879 Flowing Hair Stella ($4 Gold) is number 47 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 (23 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The coin spells out its own recipe around Liberty's head: 6 grams of gold, 0.3 of silver and 0.7 of copper, 7 grams in all.
• Members of Congress could buy a three-coin set including a stella for roughly its cost; accounts give $6.10 or $6.50.
• In October 1880, about 150 of the stellas made for Congress were reportedly still sitting in the Mint's vaults.
• Although the coins were supposed to be struck in goloid, most tested survivors turned out to be ordinary .900 gold.
• The coin behind this entry sold four times between 2007 and 2024, for $253,000, $195,500, $223,250 and $324,000.
• Some stellas given away by congressmen were later worn as jewelry or cufflinks.
• Barber's Liberty was taken almost unchanged from a half eagle pattern his father designed the year before.