1811 $5 Capped Bust Half Eagle, Tall 5 NGC AU58

Even though the 1811 $5 Capped Bust half eagle had a mintage of 99,581, it is an extremely rare coin. Please see below for an explanation of why this issue is so very rare. The specialist in early U.S. gold should take a careful look at this listing, for such rarities are rarely offered. NGC has graded only 53 examples of the 1811 $5 Tall 5 variety. Of those, there are 15 that carry the grade of AU58 with 27 finer. Collectors Universe prices this variety at $15,000.00 in AU58.

Why the 1811 $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.