1887-S

The 1887-S anchors a year defined by lopsided production: while Philadelphia struck just 53,680 business-strike eagles, San Francisco delivered 817,000, fifteen times the parent mint's output and the bulk of the With Motto Liberty Head ten-dollar coinage for the calendar year. That production imbalance reflects the Pacific Coast's continued role as the working-gold mint of the late 1880s, fed by Comstock and Mother Lode bullion arriving by rail and sea. The S-mint coiners worked from steady commercial dies, and survivors generally show clean fields with the firm strike characteristics typical of mid-1880s San Francisco gold.

For the date specialist, the 1887-S behaves as a workhorse rather than a rarity. Heritage Auctions has handled MS62 examples in the mid-three-thousand-dollar range, and certified MS63 pieces in both PCGS and NGC holders appear in major sales with regularity, signaling a date that survived in usable bag-quality numbers through the European hoarding era. The design carries the With Motto reverse adopted in 1866, with IN GOD WE TRUST arched above the eagle, and Christian Gobrecht's coronet portrait of Liberty governing the obverse. Authentication on a Regular-classification S-mint eagle hinges on weight conformance to the 16.718-gram standard and a clean inspection of the small, neatly placed S mintmark above the eagle's tail-feather cluster, this denomination attracts cast counterfeits that betray themselves on a precision balance and under low-power magnification of the mintmark serifs.

Within a date-by-date or short-set context, the 1887-S serves as the affordable, available half of the 1887 With Motto pair, while the much lower-mintage Philadelphia issue at 53,680 pieces commands the premium for collectors building a true year set. Choice uncirculated S-mint examples remain attainable in MS62 and MS63 for buyers willing to shop, with patience required as grades climb toward gem; the issue is rarely encountered in MS64 and above, where condition rarity rather than absolute scarcity drives the price curve. For the broader chronology of San Francisco mintmark distributions, design subtypes, and the With Motto transition, see our Liberty Head Eagle series history.