1914-S $5 Indian Head Half Eagle PCGS AU58

Here is an attractive—and more affordable—option in its assigned grade of AU58. This issue is a rarity in MS64 and above, but in AU it is quite attainable. PCGS has graded 326 as AU58 with 595 finer. Collector’s Universe prices this issue at $1,750.00 in AU58.

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."