1887

The 1887 eagle is a quietly interesting date in the Liberty series, a year when Philadelphia's $10 production fell to roughly 53,680 pieces while San Francisco struck more than 800,000 of the same denomination. That ten-to-one disparity is what gives the date its character: not a true rarity, but a mintage low enough to make survivors meaningfully scarcer than the surrounding common years, and a coin that tends to disappear from sight whenever a few collectors begin assembling year sets at the same time. Surfaces on representative examples carry the soft, satiny luster typical of Philadelphia gold of this period, with strikes that are usually fully struck on the central devices and crisp through the wreath.

Doug Winter has long flagged the 1887-P as undervalued in MS62 through MS64, treating it as a sleeper within a stretch of the series otherwise dominated by high-mintage dates. The combined PCGS and NGC census thins out noticeably above MS62, and properly original examples with unbroken luster and honest color command real premiums from collectors who know the population numbers. Authentication on this date follows the standard playbook for Regular issues: confirm weight at 16.718 grams within tolerance, check edge reeding depth and count, and examine the fields under raking light for the mushy denticles, seam lines, or granular texture that mark cast counterfeits. The portrait's hair curls and the eagle's neck feathers should resolve cleanly under 10x, softness in those zones on an unworn coin usually indicates a struck copy rather than a weak strike.

For year-set collectors, the 1887 occupies a useful middle ground: priced modestly above melt in lower mint state but disproportionately rewarding in higher grades where the date's true scarcity reveals itself. Buyers chasing a single representative piece are usually best served by skipping AU58 entirely and stretching to a properly original MS62, the price gap is small, the eye appeal advantage is large, and choice examples in that grade range are exactly the territory Winter recommends. For broader context on the design's run from 1838 through 1907 and the production shifts that shaped this generation of coinage, see the Liberty Head Eagle series history.