1840

The 1840 eagle is the first full-production year for the standardized Type of 1840 hub, the modified Gobrecht portrait that closed out the experimentation of 1838 and the Large Letters/Small Letters reverse transition seen across 1839. With that hub now settled, the Coronet design entered the long stretch it would hold until the motto was added in 1866. Production ran exclusively at Philadelphia: New Orleans gold eagle coinage did not begin until 1841, leaving 1840 as the only mint striking ten-dollar pieces that year. Reported mintage stands at 47,338, a modest figure even by early Liberty Eagle standards and one heavily attrited by export melts during the bullion ratio crises later in the decade.

Strike on surviving 1840 eagles is generally average to slightly soft, with the typical weakness showing on Liberty's hair detail above the ear and on the eagle's shield horizontal lines. Luster ranges from frosty to lightly proof-like on the few earlier-state survivors. Grade distribution mirrors the broader No Motto Philadelphia run: Very Fine and Extremely Fine pieces represent the bulk of the certified market, About Uncirculated examples are scarce, and Mint State coins are genuinely rare. PCGS and NGC combined population data is light at the upper grades, with anything above MS62 effectively a condition rarity. As a Type 1 No Motto coin, authentication centers on standard $10 gold diagnostics: 16.718-gram target weight, specific gravity near 17.2, and rim/edge inspection for cast tells, which remain the most common counterfeit family for mid-priced classic gold.

For collectors today the 1840 functions as an attainable early date in the No Motto Philadelphia run, almost always assembled in problem-free EF or low-AU rather than chased in Mint State. Pricing has tracked the broader pre-1850 Liberty Eagle market, with circulated coins anchored more to gold content plus a date premium than to true condition rarity. Anyone working through the series will want it as a representative of the first stable year of Gobrecht's revised portrait, an entry sitting in the shadow of the scarcer 1838 first-year and the 1839 transition issues. Full series context lives in the Liberty Head Eagle series history.