1845-O

The 1845-O Liberty Head Eagle is the fifth year of ten-dollar coinage at the New Orleans Mint and the issue that most clearly shows how die preparation, not bullion supply, drove the variety landscape in the mid-1840s No Motto era. Mintage held at 47,500 coins, a workmanlike figure for the period, but the date contains some of the most interesting die work of any New Orleans gold issue: at least five obverse varieties have been documented, with PCGS attributing one as the 1845-O Repunched Date and assigning it a separate Cert ID. On that variety the 4 in the date is repunched far to the left and a vertical patch of roughness sits inside the loop of the 5, while the mintmark rests high in the field midway between the E and N of TEN. Population for the Repunched Date sits near 25 coins in all grades, putting it in tougher territory than the standard delivery, which Doug Winter places in the scarcer middle band of No Motto New Orleans eagles.

Authentication on this date follows the disciplines of its 1841-O through 1844-O siblings, with one wrinkle. Added-O alteration of the corresponding 1845 Philadelphia eagle is a documented branch-mint risk, so the punch perimeter, font geometry, and surface continuity around the mintmark deserve front-line attention before grade-level review. For Repunched Date attribution, the variety must match PCGS's mintmark-position diagnostic in addition to the date repunching, since both elements need to align before the designation holds. Specific gravity against the 16.718-gram, 27-millimeter, 90 percent gold standard remains the baseline filter that catches plated and cast counterfeits.

Surviving population concentrates in VF through low AU, with condition rarity intensifying above AU53; Winter places the Uncirculated population at no more than four to six coins, including one he regards as very choice. A small group of EF to low-AU pieces entered the market in the early 1990s and remains the principal source of circulated supply, while the Repunched Date carries an attribution premium when properly identified. For collectors building the New Orleans run by date, the 1845-O is a meaningful early entry: scarce but obtainable in circulated grade, genuinely rare above it, and one of the more rewarding die-variety hunts in the Liberty Head Eagle series history.