1888-O $10 Liberty Head Eagle, NGC AU58

Doug Winter writes, "After a four year hiatus, coinage of eagles at the New Orleans mint resumed in 1888. Beginning with this issue, the level of rarity and the grade distribution of these issues takes on an entirely different complexion. Clearly, these issues did not see wide circulation and it is probable that those which were not ultimately melted were shipped overseas." Despite its low mintage, this is a common coin in grades up to MS62. That is why it is an affordable Gold Type Coin.

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."