1929 Indian Head Quarter Eagle (Last Year)

Two Roosevelts, one coin

The Indian Head quarter eagle was started by one President Roosevelt and stopped, in effect, by another. Theodore Roosevelt, who in a 1904 letter called the country's 19th-century coinage 'atrocious hideousness,' set out in his first term to have every American coin redesigned. The small $2.50 and $5 coins were a harder problem: the larger designs and their required inscriptions did not scale down well.

Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow, a Boston friend of the president, offered a solution. He proposed that the sculptor Bela Lyon Pratt design new coins, and that the design be incuse, cut into the coin so that the devices sit below a flat field rather than standing up from it. The idea was meant to protect the design from wear and let the coins stack evenly, and Mint Director Frank Leach thought the sunken lines would also suit the bankers. Leach even arranged to reimburse Bigelow, from government funds, for the $300 fee he had paid Pratt.

The new gold pieces entered circulation in early November 1908 and drew criticism. The Philadelphia numismatist Samuel Chapman argued the recessed design would collect dirt and germs; Bigelow answered that the Indian model was in excellent health. The quarter eagle was struck from 1908 to 1915 and again from 1925 to 1929.

Pratt, the sculptor

Bela Lyon Pratt was born on December 11, 1867, and entered the Yale School of Fine Arts at 16. At the Art Students League of New York he studied under Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who became central to his career. He was never a Mint employee. He designed the $2.50 and $5 pieces as a project for President Roosevelt and then returned to private work as a sculptor.

Pratt was unhappy with what the Mint did to his models. Chief Engraver Charles Barber modified the design, and Pratt complained that they had 'knocked spots' out of it at the Mint.

Who posed for the Indian is disputed. Some accounts identify the portrait as the Sioux chief Hollow Horn Bear; others say Pratt worked from a photograph of an unidentified Native American man in his own collection. The eagle on the reverse was based on Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural medal, designed by Saint-Gaudens.

The last year

The 1929 quarter eagles were struck in Philadelphia in the year the Dow Jones Industrial Average peaked at 381.17 on September 3, then collapsed in the crash of late October. As the Depression set in, the Mint suspended gold coinage. There may have been plans to resume when the economy recovered, but no quarter eagle was ever struck again.

In April 1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102, which halted gold coin production and forbade the hoarding of gold coin, bullion and certificates. Under the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, large quantities of unissued and returned gold coins were melted into bars. Because few 1929 quarter eagles had entered circulation to begin with, far fewer survive than the 532,000 struck.

Common coin, rare grade

In circulated and lower Mint State grades the 1929 is not rare; PCGS estimates some 66,000 survive in all grades and about 49,000 in Mint State. The difficulty is condition. The incuse design leaves a broad, flat, exposed field on both sides, and that field picks up contact marks easily. PCGS estimates only about 433 survive in MS65 or better. The leap in grading populations from MS64, with more than 5,300 graded, to MS65 at 578, and then to only a handful above that, shows how few escaped bag marks.

PCGS co-founder David Hall called the 1929 'the major condition rarity' of the later Indian quarter eagles. He wrote that the single MS67, graded by PCGS in August 1987, was spectacular and that he had not seen it since. PCGS and NGC together had graded about seven coins as MS66, a figure observers suspect includes resubmissions of the same coins; experts including Jeff Garrett, Hall and David Akers put the number of true survivors above MS65 at fewer than seven.

Akers noted that 1929 gold tends toward a yellow color, though many coins show a greenish tint, and that many were struck from buckled dies. The strike is generally good, but overall quality is not as fine as on the 1926 to 1928 issues.

The MS66 coins and their prices

The best-documented PCGS MS66 came from the Atherton Family Collection, sold at auction on March 26, 2010, where it realized $54,625, still the auction record for the date. The same coin later appeared in a new PCGS holder in the first sale of the Bob R. Simpson Collection on September 17, 2020, where it brought $20,400, less than half its earlier price.

Another PCGS MS66 sold for $30,550 in June 2014. NGC-graded MS66 coins have brought $23,000 in August 2007 and $20,700 in October 2011. For comparison, a typical MS65 has sold for about $4,000 to $6,500 and an MS64 for under $900, which means a single grade point near the top can multiply the price several times over.

How to know one

The obverse shows a Native American man in a feathered headdress facing left, with LIBERTY above, the date 1929 below, and 13 stars for the original colonies. The designer's initials BLP sit above the date. The reverse shows a standing eagle, wings folded, on a bundle of arrows wrapped with an olive branch, with UNITED STATES OF AMERICA above, 2 1/2 DOLLARS below, and the mottos E PLURIBUS UNUM and IN GOD WE TRUST in the fields.

There is no mintmark: every 1929 quarter eagle was struck in Philadelphia. Because the highest points of the design are the flat field, grading looks first at marks and luster in the field rather than wear on the portrait. The coin weighs 4.18 grams and holds 0.12094 troy ounces of gold.

The numbers

Mintage

532,000 (Philadelphia)

Survivors, all grades

About 66,166 (PCGS estimate)

Survivors, MS65 or better

About 433 (PCGS estimate)

Finest known

One PCGS MS67, graded August 1987

Weight

4.18 grams

Diameter

18 mm

Composition

90% gold, 10% copper; 0.12094 troy oz gold

Edge

Reeded

Designer

Bela Lyon Pratt

Timeline

1. Dec 11, 1867

   Bela Lyon Pratt is born.

2. 1904

   Theodore Roosevelt calls American coinage 'atrocious hideousness' and pushes for new designs.

3. Nov 1908

   Pratt's incuse $2.50 and $5 gold pieces enter circulation.

4. 1915

   Quarter eagle production pauses after this year.

5. 1925

   Quarter eagle production resumes.

6. 1929

   The Philadelphia Mint strikes 532,000 quarter eagles, the last of the denomination.

7. Apr 1933

   Executive Order 6102 halts gold coin production and forbids hoarding gold.

8. 1934

   Under the Gold Reserve Act, unissued and returned gold coins are melted into bars.

9. Aug 1987

   PCGS grades the single MS67 1929 quarter eagle.

10. Mar 26, 2010

    A PCGS MS66 from the Atherton Family Collection sets the auction record of $54,625.

11. Jun 2014

    Another PCGS MS66 sells at auction for $30,550.

12. Sep 17, 2020

    The Atherton coin, in a new PCGS MS66 holder, sells for $20,400 in the Simpson sale.

The world in 1929

• Feb 11, 1929

  The Lateran Treaty establishes Vatican City as an independent state.

• Feb 14, 1929

  The St. Valentine's Day Massacre leaves five of Al Capone's rivals and a bystander dead in Chicago.

• May 16, 1929

  The first Academy Awards are held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel; Wings wins Best Picture.

• Sep 3, 1929

  The Dow Jones Industrial Average peaks at 381.17, a level not seen again until 1954.

• Oct 24, 1929

  The Wall Street Crash begins, wiping out more than $30 billion by October 29.

• Nov 7, 1929

  The Museum of Modern Art opens in New York.

• Nov 29, 1929

  Richard E. Byrd's team becomes the first to fly over the South Pole.

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, 1929 Indian Head Quarter Eagle (Last Year) is number 79 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 (79 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Pratt's Indian Head design is the only incuse design in U.S. coinage, sunk into the surface instead of raised.
• Critics in 1908 warned the sunken design would trap dirt and germs.
• The Mint reimbursed the $300 fee Pratt's patron had paid him for the design.
• The record MS66 coin sold for $54,625 in 2010, then for $20,400 in 2020 in a new holder.
• No U.S. quarter eagle has been struck for circulation since 1929.
• David Akers observed that many 1929 quarter eagles have a greenish tint to the gold.