A survey of 19th century business strike coin
$20 CORONET HEAD, TYPE 2 (1866-1876)

Owner Comments:

In 1864 the motto, “In God we trust,” was introduced on the Two Cent piece. In 1866 Congress and the U.S. mint officials decided to add the motto to the designs of any coins that were large enough to accommodate it. For the double eagle the oval formed by 13 stars above the eagle’s head on the reverse was slightly widened to provide enough space for the additional words. A small number of 1866-S double eagles did not have the motto, but all of the Philadelphia pieces and most of the San Francisco coins included it. The so-called Type II double eagle design would appear until 1877 when the denomination, “Twenty D.” would be spelled out completely as “Twenty Dollars.”

The Type II double eagles are not particularly rare in the circulated grades up to and including Choice AU, but strictly Mint State pieces are very scarce to rare. The reason for this was that very few collectors during the 19th century could afford to set aside coins that represented more than two week’s income for most American families. On the other hand, very few citizens carried and used these coins on a regular basis. They were used for reserve balances in bank vaults or passed from one business to another to complete large cash transactions. Therefore many of the surviving pieces are in EF or AU condition.

The 1873, closed 3 double eagle illustrated above is very attractive Mint State example of this unusual type coin. It has a limited number of marks in the fields for the grade and attractive luster with spot-free surfaces on both sides. Although this is the most common type II double eagle in Mint State it is still a very scarce coin in this level of preservation. Just several hundred Type II double eagles have been graded MS-63, and beyond that the number of pieces in MS-64 and higher is probably less than 25 or 30 pieces.