$10 Liberty PCGS MS62 | US Mint Gold Eagle | 1838-1907

In 1838, after an absence of thirty-four years, a new Eagle $10 gold piece was finally introduced. So many of the previous generation of Gold Eagles had been hoarded or melted down as a result of the discrepancy between their face value and compositional worth that President Jefferson was moved to completely end their production in 1804. The Congress, though, was determined to maintain a bi-metallic standard, and, after much debate on fineness and composition, did so in 1838 by passing the two bills that authorized the production of a new Gold Eagle.
Acting Engraver Christian Gobrecht was charged with designing the coin that would come to be known as the Liberty Head Eagle. The coin’s obverse, inspired by Benjamin West’s famous painting Omnia Vincit Amor (“Love Conquers All”), depicts a left-facing bust of Liberty, hair knotted in back with hanging curls, wearing a coronet inscribed “Liberty”. The reverse features a very naturalistic American eagle holding arrows and an olive branch in its talons with a shield across its breast.
Liberty Head Double Eagles were minted in two slight variations from 1838 through 1907 in Philadelphia (no mintmark), San Francisco (“S” mintmark), New Orleans (“O”), Carson City, Nevada (“CC”), and Denver (“D”), are composed of .90% gold yielding .48375 troy ounces of pure gold per coin, and measure 27mm in diameter.