1839-C $2.50 Classic Head Quarter Eagle PCGS MS61

Here’s a dramatic rarity to add to your numismatic portfolio, one that does not come along often. If you are a specialist in Classic Head gold coinage and have the necessary resources, you should take a careful look at this listing. Purchase this coin and you will own one of the finest known of this issue. Out of its mintage of 18,140, PCGS has graded just 2 as MS61 with 3 finer. The finest at PCGS is MS62. Collectors Universe prices this issue at $40,000.00 in MS61.

Writes Doug Winter of the 1839-C quarter eagle: ”In high grades … it is scarce and underrated. In fact, it is a rarer coin in Uncirculated than the more heralded 1838-C quarter eagle … It is extremely rare and very underrated in full Mint State and is actually rarer in Uncirculated than the 1838-C.”

U.S. Mint and Assay Office, Charlotte, North Carolina. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. 

Before the production of the $2.50 Classic Head quarter eagle in 1834, it was foreign silver and fractional banknotes that served as currency in day-to-day U.S. business transactions. Contemporary U.S. gold coins--with a bullion value in international markets that surpassed their face value in silver--were constantly the object of melting during the pre-1834 period. The Mint Act of 1834 dramatically changed that practice, producing gold coins that were reduced in weight so that they would circulate--which had never happened since gold coins were first produced in 1795.