1839 Type of 1840

The 1839 Type of 1840 marks the precise moment the Liberty Head Eagle settled into the design that would carry the denomination through the rest of the No Motto era. Partway through 1839 production, Christian Gobrecht reworked the obverse hub: the bust truncation was shortened and reshaped, the head tilted slightly more upright, and the hair detail above the ear was reorganized into a tighter, neater arrangement. The reverse received its own revision, with the lettering reduced to a smaller, more refined size. What emerged from these adjustments was the standard Liberty portrait that subsequent Philadelphia and branch-mint coiners would replicate without further alteration until the close of the design in 1866. The Type of 1840 issue is the bridge: produced under the 1839 date but functionally the prototype for the next quarter-century of eagle coinage.

Authentication centers on hub identification. The Type of 1840 obverse displays a smaller, more compact Liberty with the bust truncation visibly different from the broader, sweeping cut found on the Type of 1838. Hair strands above the ear are arranged with greater separation and less mass. The reverse confirmation is straightforward: lettering is appreciably smaller than on the earlier 1839 hub, and the relationship between the eagle's wingtips and the legend is tighter. The date area should show a clean 1839 with no underlying digit traces; this issue is unrelated to the 9-over-8 overdate, which appears only on Type of 1838 dies. Standard No Motto specifications apply at 16.718 grams and 27 millimeters, and specific gravity testing near 17.2 will rule out plated counterfeits before any variety attribution is even considered.

Of the combined 1839 production reported on the catalog, the Type of 1840 share is the smaller portion, with PCGS estimating roughly 50 to 60 survivors in all grades. Most certified examples grade between Very Fine and Extremely Fine, with About Uncirculated coins genuinely scarce and Mint State examples numbering in the low single digits. Doug Winter classifies the issue as a one-year type worth a deliberate purchase rather than an opportunistic one, given that it cannot be substituted by the more available Type of 1838 in a serious type or year-set context. Heritage and Stack's Bowers offerings of properly attributed pieces are infrequent enough that condition-census candidates draw active competition. For broader context on hub progressions and the No Motto subseries, see the Liberty Head Eagle series history.