1908-S $5 Indian Head Half Eagle NGC MS64+

This issue from the first year of the popular Indian Head half eagle is both rare and beautiful. With its mintage of 82,000 it is the third lowest mintage of the entire series. Pieces from the first year of this issue are greatly desired by collectors, especially in a better grade such as MS64+. The 1908-S is known for strong, brilliant strikes. NGC has graded 7 in MS64+ with 39 finer.

Artist-medalist Bela Lyon Pratt, who crafted this unique and beautiful coin design.

Noted numismatic scholar and art critic Cornelius Vermeule writes, "Bela Lyon Pratt of Boston presented a novel coin.... an Indian brave in war bonnet adorns the obverse, and [a] Ptolemaic eagle with wings closed walks along on the reverse...The innovations [on this coin] was one of technique as much as design. Instead of being modeled in relief within a protecting rim, the Indian, the eagle, and the lettering were sunken in incuse or engraved in the uniformly flat plane of the coin .... the [coin shows] more imagination and daring of design than almost any other issue in American history."