1882-O $10 Liberty Head Eagle, PCGS AU55

Gold specialist Doug Winter writes that this issue is one "of the three undervalued, low mintage New Orleans eagles produced between 1880 and 1882." When considering the condition of the typical 1882-O Eagle, this one is definitely a PQ example! Doug Winter writes, "The surfaces are nearly always very heavily abraded. Of the three New Orleans eagles struck in the first part of this decade, the 1882-O has the worst quality surfaces and it is not uncommon to see examples that are riddled with deep abrasions on both the obverse and the reverse." But that is obviously not the case with the piece offered by AUCM! Please look at the images and you will see an attractive, well-struck coin with light abrasions, as well as eye-catching greenish-gold coloration.

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."