1894 $10 Liberty Head Eagle NGC MS64

With a production of more than 2.4 million pieces, this lustrous example is a more affordable option for the numismatist who wants to add an attractive gold Eagle to his or her collection. NGC has graded 459 specimens as MS64, with 28 finer. Collectors Universe gives this issue a price of $2,600.00 in MS64.

The Second Philadelphia Mint, where this collectible was struck in 1894. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

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, Pythagoras 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."