Classic Head Gold $5 Half Eagles
The Act of June 28, 1834 reduced the gold content of the half eagle from 8.75 grams at .9167 fineness to 8.36 grams at .8992 fineness, eliminating the bullion arbitrage that had sent nearly every…
U.S. Gold Coins
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Large Cents
Coronet Head Large Cents
Large cent production resumed in December 1816 after the two-year wartime gap, and with it came a new design by Robert Scot, who had been Chief Engraver since 1793 and was now somewhere in his early…
Dollars
Peace Dollars
By late 1921 numismatists who had campaigned since 1918 for a coin commemorating the armistice had persuaded the Treasury Department to act. Rather than producing a half dollar as originally…
U.S. Gold Coins
Indian Head Gold $10 Eagles
President Theodore Roosevelt's collaboration with Augustus Saint-Gaudens began around 1904 and called for redesigning the four denominations of gold coinage. Saint-Gaudens had originally developed…
Quarter Dollars
Draped Bust Quarters
The Coinage Act of 1792 authorized the quarter dollar, but the denomination did not appear until 1796, four years after the Mint began operations. When it did arrive, it carried the Draped Bust…
Quarter Dollars
Washington Quarters
The coin that eventually became the Washington quarter started as a proposal for a commemorative half dollar to mark the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth. Congress altered the plan:…
Small Cents
Lincoln Bicentennial Cents
The year 2009 was, in numismatic terms, genuinely unusual. February 12 marked the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. August 2 marked the 100th anniversary of the Lincoln cent. No other…
Dollars
Presidential Dollars
Congress authorized the Presidential $1 Coin Program through Pub. L. 109-145, enacted December 22, 2005. The legislation's sponsors pointed directly to the 50 State Quarters program as justification:…
Quarter Dollars
Washington Quarters (Statehood & Territories)
Public Law 105-124, signed December 1, 1997, authorized the United States Mint to issue five new quarter reverses per year from 1999 through 2008, one for each state, in the order each state ratified…
U.S. Gold Coins
Indian Head Gold $2.5 Quarter Eagles
Every circulating United States coin before 1908 followed the same fundamental principle: the design elements stand in relief above a recessed field, so that the portrait, lettering, and devices take…
Small Cents
Indian Head Cents
James B. Longacre made his case to Mint Director James Ross Snowden in a letter dated August 21, 1858: the feathered headdress was as characteristic of the Western Hemisphere as the turban was of the…
U.S. Gold Coins
Liberty Head Gold $10 Eagles (Coronet)
When Christian Gobrecht completed the Liberty Head design for the eagle in 1838, the denomination had been absent from production since Thomas Jefferson's 1804 halt. The new coin was smaller and…