$3 Gold Indian Princess
The Act of February 21, 1853, which authorized the three-dollar gold piece, was passed in the same legislative session that introduced the silver three-cent piece and reduced the weight of silver…
Denomination
U.S. Gold Coins
20 articles
$4 Gold Stella
John A. Kasson, serving as United States Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Austria-Hungary in 1879, proposed a four-dollar gold coin whose weight, fineness, and value would place it…
Capped Bust Gold $2.5 Quarter Eagles
Every quarter eagle minted between 1808 and 1834 was produced under the same monetary constraint: the statutory 15-to-1 silver-to-gold ratio set by Congress in 1792 undervalued gold relative to…
Liberty Head Gold $5 Half Eagles (Coronet)
Christian Gobrecht introduced his Coronet Liberty Head design on the eagle in 1838, adapted it to the half eagle in 1839, and completed the gold series when the quarter eagle adopted it in 1840. The…
Draped Bust Gold $5 Half Eagles
The Mint Act of April 2, 1792 authorized a gold coinage, but the federal government lacked the capital to begin operations promptly, and silver took precedence when production finally commenced in…
Draped Bust $2.5 Quarter Eagles
The Coinage Act of April 2, 1792 authorized three gold denominations: the eagle ($10), the half eagle ($5), and the quarter eagle ($2.50). Half eagles and eagles entered production in 1795; the…
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…
St. Gaudens Gold $20 Double Eagles
In December 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his Treasury Secretary: "I think our coinage is artistically of atrocious hideousness. Would it be possible... to employ a man like…
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…
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…
Indian Princess (Large Head) Gold Dollars
The Type 2 Indian Princess gold dollar had failed because its obverse relief was too high; metal that should have filled the reverse die was instead displaced through the deep recesses of the obverse…
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…
Liberty Head Gold $20 Double Eagles (Coronet)
The Act of March 3, 1849, signed by President James K. Polk on the final day of his administration, authorized the gold dollar and the double eagle simultaneously, both as instruments for converting…
Draped Bust Gold $10 Eagles
Alexander Hamilton's 1791 report on establishing the Mint proposed the ten-dollar gold piece as the benchmark denomination of the new federal monetary system, though Hamilton himself found the name…
Classic Head Gold $2.5 Quarter Eagles
When Congress passed the Act of June 28, 1834 reducing the gold content of all gold coins, the intended effect was immediate: gold coins would no longer be worth more melted than spent, so they would…
Indian Princess (Small Head) Gold Dollars
Mint Director James Ross Snowden's solution to the Type 1 gold dollar's size complaint was straightforward: widen the coin without changing its weight, and redesign both sides to suit the new…
Liberty Head Gold $2.5 Quarter Eagles (Coronet)
Christian Gobrecht introduced the Coronet or Liberty Head design on the eagle ($10) in 1838 and on the quarter eagle in 1840. Liberty faces left wearing a coronet inscribed LIBERTY, her hair drawn…
Capped Bust Gold $5 Half Eagles
When John Reich joined the Mint as Assistant Engraver in April 1807, Mint Director Robert Patterson gave him the half eagle as his first redesign assignment. Reich's obverse placed Liberty facing…
Indian Head Gold $5 Half Eagles
Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow, a Boston physician and art collector and one of President Theodore Roosevelt's close friends, had observed the incuse relief of ancient Egyptian carvings at the Boston…
Liberty Head Gold Dollars
The Act of March 3, 1849 responding to California gold added two denominations to the federal coinage simultaneously: the one-dollar piece and the twenty-dollar double eagle. Chief Engraver James B.…