Owner Comments:
The Classic Head $5 gold piece was a product of President Andrew Jackson’s economic policies. Jackson disliked banks and paper money. He believed that he could bring economic stability and prosperity to yeoman farmers and wage earners by authorizing the Federal Government to issue low denomination gold coins in large quantities. In keeping with this policy Jackson supported and signed the Coinage Act of 1834 which lowered the weight of U.S. gold coins and raised the weight ratio between gold and silver coinage from 15 ½ to 1 to 16 to 1. Prior to the passage of this law virtually no United States gold coins had circulated domestically because almost all of the mintages had been exported to foreign countries. The reason for this was that the U.S. gold coins had a melt value that exceeded their face value.
The Classic Head $2.50 and $5.00 gold pieces were the first United States gold coins that were used extensively in the U.S. economy. They are also the earliest U.S. gold coins that are readily available to modern collectors. Large quantities of these coins are available at major coin shows although strictly Mint State examples are scarce.
The coin above, an 1838-D half eagle, represents the second part of Andrew Jackson’s coinage reform. In 1835 Jackson signed legislation that created the branch mint coinage system in The United States. The legislation authorized branch mints in Charlotte, North Carolina, Dahlonega, Georgia and New Orleans, Louisiana. The Charlotte and Dahlonega facilities were built to convert the gold mined in those areas to coinage. The New Orleans mint was created to convert gold and silver foreign coinage that flowed into that strategic port city into U.S. coinage.
This 1838-D half eagle was minted during the Dahlonega mint’s first year of operations. The total mintage was 20,583. The 1838-D half eagle is scarce in all grades and rare in strictly Mint State condition. This piece is tied with a few other coins from this issue that have received the MS-63 grade from the third party grading services. It is among the finest known example for this scarce issue.