1861

The 1861 eagle stands as the most available Civil War-era $10 Liberty issue by a wide margin, its 113,164-piece reported mintage exceeds the combined production of every other Civil War eagle from any mint. Louisiana militia had seized the New Orleans Mint on January 26, removing one of the government's two southern gold-coining facilities, and the bullion that would normally have supported New Orleans output redirected to Philadelphia in the war's opening months. By April, the firing on Fort Sumter triggered the public hoarding of specie that would suspend gold and silver circulation across the Union for the duration of the war.

Survival is correspondingly stronger than any other Civil War $10. Doug Winter places known examples comfortably above 750 pieces across all grades, concentrated in Very Fine through Extremely Fine. About Uncirculated coins are obtainable with patience and tend to show the scuffs consistent with brief commercial circulation before disappearing into hoards. Three to four dozen Mint State examples are estimated to exist, the great majority graded MS60 or MS61 with the typical bag abrasions of a coin that was bagged and shipped rather than carefully preserved. MS62 is genuinely scarce, MS63 is rare, and anything finer is a condition rarity, the Harry Bass coin at PCGS MS66 ranks among the finest No Motto eagles of any date. Authentication on a common-date piece centers on strike and originality rather than rarity tells: confirm the 16.718-gram weight against 90% gold, 10% copper composition, 27 mm diameter, and reeded edge, and watch surface texture closely, since cast counterfeits of Civil War-era gold continue to surface and tend to betray themselves through soft devices, granular fields, and weight discrepancies of a tenth of a gram or more.

The 1861 functions as the entry point to Civil War eagle collecting, the one date in the run a generalist can reasonably expect to acquire in a presentable circulated grade without paying rarity money. Recent CAC-stickered AU58 examples have transacted in the $4,000-$4,500 range at retail, with strict MS61 material moving at meaningful premiums and MS62-and-finer coins crossing the auction block infrequently enough that each appearance resets local price expectations. For full design history and date-by-date context, see the Liberty Head Eagle series history.