Owner Comments:

The American gold eagle was created so that Americans would have an American product to buy if they wanted to own and invest in gold. Nationalism certainly played a role in passing the legislation that created this coin, and patriotism heavily informed its designs. For these reasons, and also because of its status as the only U.S. gold coin, the American eagle found a loyal following among collectors who purchased bullion-issue coins for their collections. Since the inauguration of the series in 1986, the American gold eagle was issued in four sizes: in one-ounce, 1/2-ounce, 1/4-ounce, and 1/10-ounce weights. The most popular issues were always the one-ounce and 1/10-ounce sizes, which carried $50 and $5 face values, respectively. The other weights were poor sellers; in many years, 10 times more one-ounce coins were struck than 1/2-ounce or 1/4-ounce coins. Other than interested collectors, the other purchasers of those fractional sizes—so called because they consist of a fraction of an ounce of gold—are small investors. This group was most heavily hit by a recession. Deficit and inflation concerns, spurred by rising oil prices during the first Persian Gulf War, should have pushed U.S. investors towards gold. True gold-bugs had bought into the eagle program when it was first opened, only to watch the price of gold fall by 30 percent from $500 to $350 an ounce during the late 1980s. More casual investors would have been aware of gold’s tumble during the past decade from its short-lived dizzying highs of 1980. In 1991, when signals suggested that gold investments would be popular, they weren’t. Interest from collectors wanting to complete a set likely accounted for a significant portion of the interest in the 1/2-ounce 1991 $25 gold eagle. Only 24,100 were produced; not only is this the lowest mintage figure for a 1/2-ounce bullion-issue gold eagle, it’s the lowest mintage figure for any bullion-issue gold eagle. As a result, today it is, by a good margin, the most valuable 1/2-ounce gold eagle, eclipsing even the Proof and Uncirculated (with mintmark) collector issues. Bullion issues are sold by the U.S. Mint through official distributors, who buy coins in large quantities primarily to service investor demand. When purchasing coins in the secondary market, often it’s not possible to request coinage of a specific year other than the current year. Coins of prior years become intermixed or are not tracked by date by bullion dealers. This is doubly true because gold eagles issued from 1986 through 1991 included a date in Roman numerals. This number form was so difficult to work with that bullion dealers avoided date-specific sales for these coins, and the MCMXCI-issue can’t be purchased from investor sources. Instead, collectors are reliant on the small number available through numismatic channels, where its scarcity is always recognized. In 1992, the date format was changed to conventional Arabic-style numerals for the gold eagle, which has, in a small way, improved the accessibility of these coins. They, along with all subsequent issues, are also of a higher mintage. Some of the Uncirculated coins issued to collectors do have lower mintage figures, but they are more available in collectors’ circles and do not yet garner the price premium of the 1991 issue.

Garrett, Jeff; Schechter, Scott; Bressett, Kenneth; Bowers, Q. David (2011-03-04). 100 Greatest US Modern Coins (Kindle Locations 2255-2282). Whitman Publishing. Kindle Edition.