1809/8 $5 Capped Bust Half Eagle PCGS MS63

A Great Rarity Housed in the PCGS Old Green Label Holder!

Heritage Auctions writes in February of 2023, “Traditionally, this variety has been listed as an overdate, but John Dannreuther and Harry Bass both believed the artifact under the final digit in the date was actually another 9, making its overdate status doubtful. The surviving population numbers approximately 250-325 examples in all grades.” Out of its mintage of 33,875, there are just 249 original examples graded by PCGS. Of those, there are 21 in MS63 with 33 finer. Collectors Universe gives this issue a price of $32,500.00 in MS63.

Why the 1809/8 $5 Capped Bust Half Eagle is so rare

Gold coins were undervalued from 1794 to 1834 and thus became de facto bullion, resulting in gold vanishing from our shores. A House committee report from 1819 tells us, "Gold is estimated below its fair relative value, in comparison with silver and ... can scarcely be considered as having formed a material part of our money circulation for the last twenty-six years [since 1793].”

The First Philadelphia Mint, where merchants brought gold bullion and foreign gold coins to mint into U.S. coins, which were then mostly exported. Most survivors, such as this example offered by AUCM, were housed in the First Bank of the United States.

It was in 1821 that another House committee declared: "On inquiry, they find that gold coins, both foreign and of the United States, have in great measure disappeared." Continuing along the same theme, a Senate select committee of 1830 bluntly reported: "We have no gold coins in circulation." Mint Director Samuel Moore stated in 1832: "Gold at present constitutes no part of our currency; and not having, within any recent period, performed in the United States the office of coin, it has not been the standard of value assumed in existing contracts." Gold was brought to the Philadelphia Mint in the form of bullion and foreign coins. After it was minted into U.S. coins, they were mostly exported to Europe.