1853/2 Eagle (1853/2 $10) NGC AU55 CAC. This overdate eagle is extremely rare. It is a lovely, lustrous coin with mint luster on the obverse on Liberty’s hair and beads, and on the reverse, on the eagle’s head and wing tops as well as the arrows and olive branches. There are a few trivial contact marks on Liberty’s cheek and a few more in the reverse field.

There is sight wear on the hair above Liberty’s ear and on the eagle’s wing tips, which keeps the coin from mint state. An overdate occurs when one number of a date is changed and the underlying numeral is at least partly visible. Sometimes overdates are made for economic reasons because a new die would have been too costly to make.

Other times overdates occur because the wrong numeral was punched and the mint worker merely places the new number punch over the old one. An overdate is not considered an error coin because the mint workers knew what they were doing when they created it; however, it is a very collectable variety, which is unusual for gold coinage.