1833 $5 Capped Bust Half Eagle, Large Date PCGS MS61

Here’s a truly great rarity for the sophisticated collector to include in his or her collection. Out of a mintage of 193,630, there are only 30 to 40 of the Large Date 1833 $5 gold pieces existing today. To discover why, please see below. PCGS has graded 4 as MS61 with 7 finer. Collectors Universe prices this rare issue at $120,000.00 in MS61.

Why the 1833 $5 Capped Bust Large Date half eagle is so rare

Gold coins were undervalued from 1794 to 1834 and thus became de facto bullion. That was due to Alexander Hamilton creating the incorrect silver to gold ratio of 15 to 1 in his “Report on the Establishment of a Mint” (1791). That ratio was made law in the Coinage Act of 1792. Therefore there was widespread hoarding and melting of gold coins. This was up until 1834. The one gold coin that realized the most elimination through melting was the Capped Bust half eagle of 1813-1834. Up until the creation of the $5 Classic Head half eagle in 1834, foreign silver and fractional banknotes served as currency in day-to-day U.S. commerce.

The First Philadelphia Mint, where merchants brought gold bullion and foreign gold coins to mint into U.S. gold 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. Image: Public domain.

A House of Representatives 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].”

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.