Draped Bust Gold Eagles (1795–1804)

The Eagle Was Hamilton's Benchmark Gold Denomination and Was Halted Nine Years Later Because Most of Each Year's Production Was Being Melted Abroad

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 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 in a draped bust with flowing hair and a conical cap, a portrait based on drawings by Gilbert Stuart, the same source used for the silver Draped Bust coinage introduced the same year. The reverse, for the Small Eagle type of 1795 to 1797, adapted the same Roman cameo eagle Scot had used for the half eagle reverse: a small naturalistic bird perched on a palm branch within a wreath, holding a wreath sprig in its beak. No denomination appears anywhere on the coin; value was traded by the tale, determined solely by weight and purity. The composition of 91.67% gold and 8.33% copper, at 17.50 grams, would remain unchanged until Jefferson, then as president, 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 left claw and the olive branch in the right; 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, with no production in 1802. 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, all selling through Stack's Bowers Galleries. Stack's Bowers Galleries, November 2024, lot 3146, 1795 BD-1 Eagle, NGC About Uncirculated 55, $90,000 (Robert D. Reed Collection, record for NGC-certified example in grade).²

Jefferson Stopped the Series in 1804 Because Mass Melting Had Rendered the Denomination Commercially Useless

The Napoleonic Wars drove European gold prices sharply above the levels that had prevailed when the Mint Act set the 15-to-1 silver-to-gold statutory ratio, making United States gold coins worth more when exported and sold as bullion than when spent at face value. Most of each year's production went directly from the Mint to bullion dealers and speculators, bypassing commerce entirely. President Jefferson halted the eagle simultaneously with the silver dollar in 1804, calculating that continuing to strike a denomination whose entire output was immediately exported served no monetary purpose. Fewer than 1 percent 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. The Small Eagle type as a whole has an estimated 10,609 to 18,676 survivors according to Dannreuther's analysis, well under two percent of the total number of business strikes documented for both types combined; attrition on the Heraldic Eagle issues was comparable. A 1795 Small Eagle example graded Mint State 66+ by PCGS from the D. Brent Pogue Collection, Part II, sold by Stack's Bowers Galleries and Sotheby's, September 30, 2015, lot 2092, $2,585,000, the finest known.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 1800 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 achievable in theory but demanding in practice, since every date is scarce and several approach major rarity. The 1797 Small Eagle and 1804 Crosslet 4 are the most difficult circulated dates to acquire, and Gem (Mint State 65 or finer) examples of any date are individual notable events. A complete die marriage set of 32 varieties has been accomplished by only three collectors in the numismatic record. The primary specialist reference for the complete early eagle series is Dannreuther, John W., and Bass, Harry W. Jr., Early U.S. Gold Coin Varieties: A Study of Die States, 1795–1834 (Atlanta: Whitman Publishing, 2006).⁴