1904-S

San Francisco struck 97,000 Liberty Head Half Eagles in 1904, an output that looks modest beside the 392,000 pieces produced that year in Philadelphia. The branch mint was running at full tilt on Morgan dollars and Eagle gold, and half eagle press time was squeezed in between larger contracts. The dies arrived from Philadelphia already hubbed with Christian Gobrecht's Coronet portrait and the post-1866 reverse carrying IN GOD WE TRUST on a ribbon above the eagle. Coiners weighed planchets to a 8.359 gram standard in the 90 percent gold, 10 percent copper alloy, then ran them through a 21.6 mm collar that cut the reeded edge in a single pass. The S mintmark was punched by hand into each working die just below the eagle's tail feathers, which is why the position drifts slightly from die to die.

Authenticating a 1904-S takes a careful look at the mintmark and the planchet. Genuine examples show a clean, slightly serifed S sitting at a consistent depth, without the soft, mushy edges that betray a Philadelphia coin with a counterfeit S added later. Weigh the coin first: anything more than a few hundredths off 8.359 grams is a red flag, since cast copies in lower-karat gold rarely hit the spec. Under 10x magnification the denticles around the rim should be sharp and evenly spaced, and Liberty's hair curls behind the ear should retain crisp separation lines even on circulated pieces. Surface luster on uncirculated survivors is usually frosty rather than prooflike, a fingerprint of the worn working dies the branch mint was using late in the run.

Today the 1904-S trades as a moderately scarce date that most series collectors can chase but rarely find without searching. Circulated VF and XF pieces appear at major shows several times a year, and the issue is well within reach for a date set builder working through the early 1900s San Francisco run. Mint State coins are tougher, with population reports showing a real cliff above MS62, and gem examples at MS64 and finer command strong premiums at auction. Collectors often pair this date with the 1903-S and 1906-S to track how strike quality shifted across consecutive years. Read the full Liberty Head Half Eagle series history.