When conditions improved in the 1850s, $10 gold coins were still impractical for most Americans and during the Civil War, mintage totals became even smaller-often fewer than 10,000 per year. With the country mired in an economic depression from 1838 to 1844, $10 was a huge sum, which meant there was little demand for gold eagles. Minted from 1838 to 1866, No Motto $10 Liberty Gold Coins are generally rare and expensive in higher grades. Quarter Eagles contained 25% of the gold in a Gold Eagle, so they were worth $2.50. Half Eagles, containing half as much gold, were worth $5. Smaller-denomination coins were simply fractions of this base unit. 900 in 1837, and with the price of gold fixed at $20.67 per ounce by law, the value of the gold content in each $10 Liberty gold eagle was held at exactly $10.

With the purity of gold in circulating coins fixed at. The gold eagle was a base-unit of denomination in US gold coinage, originally established by the Coinage Act of 1792. When $10 Liberty gold eagles were minted, gold was money. This design was also the prototype for the Half Eagle and Large Cent in 1839. The reverse depicts a heraldic eagle, wings spread and head turned left, clutching olive branches of peace and arrows of war in its talons. Gobrecht's $10 gold coin design features a bust of Liberty in left profile on the obverse, with the word LIBERTY emblazoned in a coronet upon her head (hence the alternative name, Coronet Gold Eagle). The second variety, the 'With Motto' $10 liberty, was made from 1866 until 1907.Īlso called the $10 Coronet Gold Eagle, the $10 Liberty was created by Christian Gobrecht, an engraver who also is credited with the Seated Liberty silver dime, quarter, and half dollar designs of the same era. The first variety, the 'No Motto' $10 Liberty gold eagle, was minted from 1838 to 1866. Mint in 1838 and continued in production until 1907 with only one substantial design change, the addition of the motto IN GOD WE TRUST on the reverse in 1866. $10 Liberty gold eagle coins were introduced by the U.S.

Us 10 dollar gold coin