1913 $5 Indian Head Half Eagle PCGS MS63+

Here’s an attractive piece to include in your coin collection. And it’s one that is more reasonably priced. David Akers writes, “This issue is usually well struck with finely granular surfaces and very good to excellent lustre.” PCGS has graded 63 as MS63+ with 825 finer. Collectors Universe gives this issue a price of $2,750.00 in MS63+.

Bela Lyon Pratt, the artist-engraver who crafted this beautiful coin. Wikimedia Commons.

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 were] 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."