1882-O

Struck in the fourth year of the New Orleans Mint's post-Reconstruction eagle production, the 1882-O occupies a peculiar space in the With Motto series: the first Crescent City ten-dollar issue of the decade to break five figures in mintage, yet still scarce enough that Doug Winter ranks it fifth of sixteen With Motto New Orleans eagles. Just 10,820 pieces left the coining presses, and what survives, roughly 300 to 350 across all grades, bears the marks of an issue that circulated hard, was hoarded sparingly, and has been picked over by generations of cleaners and dippers.

The 1882-O is a Semi-Key whose true scarcity hides in surface quality rather than census totals. Authentication should begin at the mintmark: examine the small 'O' below the eagle for sharp serifs and clean field transition, since added-mintmark deceptions remain a documented threat across this series. Confirm the 16.718-gram weight standard and a specific gravity near 17.2 to rule out gold-washed or alloyed counterfeits. The harder problem with this date is condition assessment. Most surviving 1882-O eagles have been dipped at some point, Winter notes that locating an original-skin example "is now very difficult," with stripped luster producing an artificial prooflike sheen that amplifies the deep abrasions characteristic of the issue. Look for the natural bright-yellow to green-gold coloration with rose overtones; coins exhibiting flat, uniformly bright fields without that color depth have almost certainly been processed.

For the date collector, the 1882-O is obtainable in circulated grades but punishing above AU55, where original surfaces and color command sharp premiums. Mint State examples are genuinely rare, only nine to ten are known, mostly clustered at MS60 to MS61, with a pair of PCGS MS63 coins standing as the finest known. Heritage's last documented PCGS MS60 sale realized $6,325 back in 2010, and the MS63 examples have traded privately rather than publicly since. Build a New Orleans With Motto eagle set and the 1882-O sits with the 1881-O and 1883-O as the trio that defines the early-decade challenge, but its surface-quality problem makes it the one that takes longest to find right. Read more in our Liberty Head Eagle series history.