Draped Bust Gold Eagles (1795–1804)

The Eagle Was the Highest Denomination in Hamilton's Plan and Was Halted Nine Years Later Because Its Gold Was Worth More as Export Bullion

Alexander Hamilton's 1791 report on establishing the Mint proposed a ten-dollar gold piece as the highest denomination of the new federal coinage, though Hamilton himself found the name something less than apt, writing that "the eagle is not a very expressive or apt appellation for the largest gold piece, but nothing better occurs." The denomination was codified in the Mint Act of April 2, 1792, and the first eagles reached the Treasurer of the Mint in September 1795, about two months after the first half eagles. Chief Engraver Robert Scot designed both obverse and reverse. The obverse places Liberty facing right, her long hair flowing from beneath a soft cap; the model for the portrait is uncertain (Walter Breen thought Scot worked from an engraving of a Roman copy of a Hellenistic goddess), and although the gold series is often filed under the Draped Bust name, this Capped Bust Right or Turban Head portrait is a different design from the Draped Bust portrait that appeared on the silver dollar later the same year. The reverse, for the Small Eagle type of 1795 to 1797, used the same small eagle Scot had used for the half eagle reverse: a slender bird perched on a palm branch, holding a small wreath in its beak, within the legend UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. No denomination appears anywhere on the coin; its value rested on its weight and gold content. The composition of 91.67% gold and 8.33% silver and copper, at 17.50 grams, would remain unchanged until President Jefferson ordered a halt to production in 1804, and the denomination was not coined again for thirty-four years.¹

Scot's Heraldic Eagle Transposed the Arrows and Olive Branch, Reversing the Convention of the Great Seal

In 1797, Scot replaced the Small Eagle reverse with a Heraldic Eagle based on the bird on the Great Seal of the United States, placing a shield on the eagle's breast, thirteen arrows and an olive branch in its talons, and a ribbon inscribed E PLURIBUS UNUM in its beak, with a constellation of thirteen stars above. Scot transposed the positions of the arrows and olive branch, placing the arrows in the right (dexter) claw and the olive branch in the left (sinister) claw; on the Great Seal and in heraldic convention, the dominant right claw holds the symbol of peace while the left holds the symbol of war. The error was never corrected in the series. Both types of eagle share the same obverse; a 1797 transitional year saw both Small Eagle and Heraldic Eagle reverses in use, making 1797 a year that can accommodate a coin of either type for a collector building a complete two-type set. The Heraldic Eagle continued through 1804; no eagles are dated 1802, although Mint deliveries that year were struck from 1801-dated dies. The complete series of 32 die marriages runs from the first 1795 Small Eagle delivery through the final 1804 Heraldic Eagle production, and only three collectors are known to have assembled the complete set by die marriage: Anthony Taraszka, Harvey B. Jacobson Jr. and the owner of the Tyrant Collection, with Stack's Bowers Galleries selling the first two sets in 2019 and 2022. A 1795 BD-1 eagle from the Robert D. Reed Collection, graded About Uncirculated 55 by NGC, brought $90,000 as lot 3146 at Stack's Bowers Galleries in November 2024, a record for an NGC-certified example in that grade.²

Jefferson Stopped the Series in 1804 Because So Many Eagles Were Being Exported That Further Striking Served No Purpose

By about 1800 the market value of gold had risen to roughly 15.75 times that of silver, above the 15-to-1 statutory ratio set by the Mint Act, making United States gold coins worth more when exported and sold as bullion than when spent at face value. So much gold was exported that gold coins had largely vanished from circulation in the United States by 1800. President Jefferson halted the eagle together with the silver dollar in 1804, since enough of each year's coinage was being exported to make continued striking pointless. Only a small fraction of the approximately 132,592 business strikes produced across both types are believed to survive; for most individual issues, population estimates run below a thousand examples in all grades combined. Dannreuther estimates that 10,609 to 18,676 Small Eagle coins were struck, against 13,344 in the Mint's delivery records; his survival estimates for the individual dates run from a few dozen to a few hundred coins. The finest known 1795, graded Mint State 66+ by PCGS, brought $2,585,000 as lot 2092 when Stack's Bowers Galleries and Sotheby's sold Part II of the D. Brent Pogue Collection on September 30, 2015.³

Building the Set

A two-coin type set requires one Small Eagle example and one Heraldic Eagle example. The 1795 Small Eagle and the 1799 or 1801 Heraldic Eagle are the practical choices for the respective types; all are available in grades through About Uncirculated with effort, though prices are high across the entire series. A date set is demanding, since every date is scarce and several approach major rarity. The 1798/7 overdate with its stars arranged 7x6, with an estimated 20 to 30 survivors, is the most difficult date to acquire; the 1797 Small Eagle, the 1798/7 9x4 Stars and the 1804 Crosslet 4 each survive in about a hundred pieces or fewer, and Gem (Mint State 65 or finer) examples of any date seldom come to market. The standard specialist reference for the series is Early U.S. Gold Coin Varieties: A Study of Die States, 1795-1834, by John W. Dannreuther and Harry W. Bass Jr. (Atlanta: Whitman Publishing, 2006).⁴