Looking for a worthwhile hobby that’s not only fulfilling for a collector but in the long run, such a hobby will prove to be a very good investment as well. Coming across a Liberty Head gold coin and you may not be that enthusiastic about it without knowing that this seemingly insignificant coin actually has some good amount of gold in it. At most, a 5 dollar gold coin has a quarter of an ounce of gold in it.
Liberty Head Gold Coin Trivia
This 5 dollar coin is also known by the names, $5 Coronet and the Liberty Head Half Eagle. It has the longest running gold coin in the history of US coinage, spanning a total of 69 fruitful years, from 1839 to 1908. The Liberty Head gold coin also has the honor of being the only coin to be produced in all of the seven branch mints in operation during those times.
The Liberty Head 5 dollar gold coin was produced at: Philadelphia (no mintmark), Charlotte (“C” mintmark), Dahlonega (“D” mintmark, only until 1861), Carson City (“CC” mintmark), New Orleans (“O” mintmark), San Francisco (“S” mintmark) and Denver (“D” mintmark, starting in 1906).
Liberty Head Gold Coin History
Up until the production of the Liberty Head 5 dollar gold coins, the only gold coins produced by the US Mint are $10 coins. And to know the history of the Liberty Head gold coin, we must also take a look at its predecessor, the $10 gold coin.
When the first $10 gold coins came out, the US Mint did not put a denomination on them and the public did not know what to call the coins.
There was an eagle on the reverse of the coins so people began to call the $10 gold coins as the “Eagle”. As a result, the 5 dollar gold coins when they came out in circulation became known as the “Half Eagle”, hence the name Liberty Head Half Eagle. A $2.50 dollar gold coin was a “Quarter Eagle” and a $20 gold coin is also known as a “Double Eagle”.
Liberty Head Gold Coin Design
The Liberty Head 5 dollar gold coin design had a bit of a history of its own as well. President Thomas Jefferson ordered the production of the $10 gold coins to a stop in 1804, but in 1838, the need for the coins arose so that Congress passed two laws that brought it back to production. This re-institution of the $10 gold coins into circulation also called for a new design.
The Assistant Engraver then was Christian Gorbrecht and his design was pretty simple. He almost copied the head of Venus in the painting “Omnia Vincit Amor” by Benjamin West. He added the word LIBERTY upon the coronet crown and added 13 stars surrounding the Liberty image on the face of the coin. On the other hand, the reverse side features a bald eagle with wings spread and a shield on its chest. In its talons, it holds an olive branch and arrows. The eagle is then surrounded by the inscription •UNITED STATES OF AMERICA•.
The 5 dollar gold coin is indeed very rich in history and heritage. However, aside from this, one of the most important factors that coin collectors search for is the amount of gold that these coins contain.
The Liberty Head gold coin is also one of the enjoyable since you can choose to collect them by the series, meaning with the motto and without the motto sets, the mintmark set, and the southern mintmark set. Completing the whole series can be quite a challenge considering that the gold coins before 1878 can be very hard to find.
Collecting the different kinds of 5 dollar gold coin can be a worthwhile endeavor indeed.