1916-S $5 Indian Head Half Eagle PCGS AU58

Here is a desirable coin, one that will give you years of pleasure. This was the last issue of this series until 1929. Its mintage is 240,000. PCGS has graded 463 as AU58 with 1,423 finer. Collector’s Universe prices this issue at $1,225.00 in AU58.

Noted numismatic scholar and art critic Cornelius Vermeule writes, "Bela Lyon Pratt of Boston presented a novel coin.... 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."

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