Gem
1811 Capped Bust $5 Gold, Tall 5, NGC MS64
- $42,500. Click on Coin Image to
enlarge
Only
1 graded higher at NGC. This beautiful Capped Bust 1811
Half Eagle boasts a full strike with full details on
both sides. The centers of the stars, hair details,
the eagle’s feather's are all strong and sharp.
The dentils are also strong on both the obverse and
reverse. What keeps this coin from MS-65 is mystifying.
The surfaces
are extremely clean for the grade, which could have
easily been a point higher. No adjustment marks are
seen on the coin, and she is highly lustrous especially
in protected areas. Please act quickly to secure this
one of a kind early half eagle gold.
Please contact
me by email
or telephone 1-941-291-2156
to reserve this great coin.
Within six months of
his assignment as Assistant Engraver, John Reich designed
the new half eagle. They were immediately criticized
because Liberty was seen as “the artist’s
fat mistress.” The obverse includes the artist’s
signature, the notch on star 13. Many of these pieces
were saved because they were the first of a new design
and distinctly different from the European and Latin
American coins that circulated during this time. However,
in 1834 the weight standard for gold was lowered, and
many half eagles went into melting pots.
The obverse shows Liberty in profile
facing left wearing a LIBERTY inscribed cap that was
intended to represent a Phrygian cap. It has seven stars
to the left of Liberty and six to the right with the
date below. The reverse shows a heraldic eagle with
its wings raised. It is more defiant than its predecessor
with its mouth opened and its neck aggressively curved.
The inscription UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is in an arc
around the eagle, interrupted by the wing tips. On a
banner over the eagle’s head between its wings
is the motto E PLURIBUS UNUM. The denomination written
as 5 D is below. Dentils are seen at the periphery of
both sides of the coin.
Reich corrected the error made by Robert
Scot in the design of the previous half eagle (as well
as his other heraldic eagle motifs). Scot had placed
the arrows in the eagle’s right or dexter claw
and put the olive branch in the left or sinister claw.
This reversal of the positions of these two items is
an inaccurate modification of the Great Seal of the
United States. Arrows in the right claw symbolize extreme
militarism, perhaps placed there because of the recent
hostilities with France over shipping rights. The symbolism
was being used to make a statement to France and others
about the sovereignty of the United States. On the Capped
Bust Half Eagle, the olive branch is in the right claw
and the arrows are in the left.