1839 $10 Type of 1840 MS(PCGS#8580)

March 2021 U.S. Coins Auction

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

5957

等级

VF35

价格

39,432

详细说明

1839 Liberty Head Eagle. Small Letters (a.k.a. Type of 1840). VF-35 (NGC). Richly toned in deep honey-olive and more vivid reddish-gold, both sides also offer bold detail to the major design elements. The longest-running ten-dollar gold eagle series produced in the United States Mint, the Liberty Head eagle was struck without interruption from 1838 through early 1907. It is the first eagle produced since 1804, President Thomas Jefferson having halted production of both this denomination and the silver dollar that year. By 1838, however, two laws had been passed that made it possible for the Mint to resume eagle coinage. The first was the Act of June 28, 1834, which reduced the weight of standard U.S. gold coins and, in so doing, placed the nation's monetary system on a gold standard. The second was the Act of January 18, 1837, a general overhaul of the nation's coinage laws that, among other things, standardized the fineness of gold and silver coins at 900 thousandths. When eagle production resumed in 1838, the Mint settled upon the Liberty Head design by Christian Gobrecht. The obverse features a left-facing portrait of Liberty, her hair tied in a bun at the back of her head, wearing a coronet inscribed LIBERTY, with 13 stars around the border, and the date below the portrait. The initial portrait utilized in 1838 and early 1839 had deeper curvature to the truncation of the bust with Liberty's hair pulled back over her ear. For unknown reasons the design was modified slightly in 1839 to create the Liberty Head motif that would remain in use through the series' end in 1907. The basic reverse design also remained unchanged from 1838 to 1907, the focal feature an eagle with outstretched wings and a shield on its breast. The eagle clutches a group of three arrows in its left talon and an olive branch in its right talon. The legend UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is around the border and the denomination TEN D. is below the eagle. The reverse was modified in 1866 with the addition of the motto IN GOD WE TRUST on a scroll above the eagle. To distinguish them from their No Motto predecessors of 1838 to 1866, the Motto eagles of 1866 to 1907 are known as the Type II Liberty Head design. The second type of Liberty Head eagle produced in 1839, the Small Letters is distinguished from its Large Letters counterpart not only by the aforementioned differences in the design of Liberty's portrait, but also in the size of the letters in the legend UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and the denomination TEN D. on the reverse. The 1839 Small Letters was produced to the extent of just 12,447 pieces, with 25,801 coins for the 1839 Large Letters. The former is the rarer of the two issues, although it is often overlooked by collectors focused on the brevity of the Large Letters design type of 1838 and early 1839. PCGS CoinFactsprovides an estimate of only 50 to 60 coins extant in all grades for the 1839 Small Letters. With market appearances few and far between, the significance of the present offering should be obvious to the astute gold enthusiast. Provenance: From the Steve Studer Collection. PCGS# 8580. NGC ID: 262F. Click here for certification details from NGC.