1795 Small Eagle

The 1795 Small Eagle half eagle is the first gold coin of any denomination ever struck by the United States, and that single fact secures it a permanent place at the head of every American gold cabinet. The Coinage Act of 1792 had authorized federal gold years earlier, but the Philadelphia Mint did not secure a workable bullion supply or the personal sureties from David Rittenhouse and the assayers required to begin striking precious metals until the spring of 1795. Robert Scot, the Mint's first Chief Engraver, finished the dies in May, and the inaugural delivery of 744 pieces took place on July 31, 1795. The eagle ($10) followed that fall and the quarter eagle did not appear until 1796, leaving the half eagle alone with the title of inaugural United States gold issue. Scot's obverse adapts a Gilbert Stuart portrait of Ann Willing Bingham into Liberty in a turban-style cap with fifteen stars for the states then in the Union; the reverse shows a small naturalistic eagle perched on a palm branch, holding a wreath in its beak.

Authentication of an unholdered 1795 begins with the reverse, where the small perched eagle on its palm branch is the immediate visual separator from the Heraldic Eagle reverse that shares the year. Genuine planchets weigh 8.75 grams in the 0.9167 fine alloy, with the remaining 8.33 percent split between copper and trace silver carried over from the deposited bullion. Adjustment file marks on the obverse fields are a Mint-era feature rather than damage, made when overweight planchets were dressed down to standard, and cataloguers price around them rather than against them. Bass-Dannreuther die marriages BD-1 through BD-9 cover the year, and an attribution by Heritage or Stack's Bowers is the most reliable starting point for a raw example. Cast counterfeits give themselves away under five-power magnification through grainy fields and mushy device edges where the original dies cut crisp lines.

Surviving population estimates put the Small Eagle reverse at roughly 300 to 500 examples across all grades, with most falling between Fine and About Uncirculated and Mint State coins genuinely scarce. Top-tier provenance, particularly Pittman, Bass, Eliasberg, or Pogue, lifts a result past the run-rate trade for the grade, and a Heritage MS65 sale in January 2012 set a benchmark at $822,500 that finer certified pieces have since pushed into the seven-figure range. For a type set, this is the foundational anchor that pairs with the 1794 silver dollar as the two opening monuments of federal coinage. See the full Draped Bust Half Eagle series history.