1859-S $10 Liberty Head Eagle NGC AU50 - Underrated Gold Rarity-!

      It is with pride that we at AUCM offer this underrated gold rarity from the early days of the San Francisco mint: 1859-S $10 Liberty eagle in NGC AU50. "The 1859-S eagle, like most of the S-Mint dates from the 1850s and 1860s, is an underappreciated rarity that would be worth many times its current value if date collectors focused their attention on No Motto eagles." Thus wrote Garrett and Guth on this issue in their Encyclopedia on gold coins. This coin would be the perfect addition to a type set of the most important gold coins in U.S. history. Or if you want one really great and extremely gold piece, this is the one to get!

      Discussing the design found upon the Liberty Head eagle, numismatic scholar and art critic Cornelius Vermeule writes, "Gobrecht executed new designs (1838) for the $10 denomination in gold, a coin known as an eagle. The bust of Liberty with an inscribed coronet in her hair that graced the obverse was to remain on the gold coinage until 1908. The reverse differed little from the design in use since 1807 on the $5 gold piece save that the wings of the eagle spread from one edge of the coin to the other. Commenting upon the inspiration for Gobrecht's Liberty, Vermeule writes, "The motivation for this Roman head of Liberty stems from vast, varied neoclassicism of the Napoleonic era. Typical of the source is a small painting ... by Jacques-Louis David's contemporary Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, Phythagoras or The Earth is Round, painted about 1800. ... [On the painting it] is the diademed or coroneted, white-robed, seated female that should attract our attention, for she is related to the heads of Liberty on our 19th century gold ... coinage."