1854-O Eagle Large Date - 1854-O $10 NGC AU55. This Southern branch mint 1854-O Eagle Large Date is lustrous with nice color. There is just faint trace of wear at the top of the coronet and the high points of Libertys hair. The surfaces are original, clean, and free any noteworthy abrasions. Muted mint luster is present in protected areas within the devices. The strike shows central weakness, but some of the stars have detail and the reverse legends are strong.

The Large Date variety is a result of the diesinker using the wrong date punch. He used the silver dollar punch instead of the one for the eagle. The result is that the date takes up most of the space under the truncation. It is the largest date punch used for any New Orleans eagle.

Generally speaking Liberty Head eagle coins had low mintages. While a few years had large mintages of more than 200,000, most were significantly less. Some dates are difficult to obtain because their mintages were limited or they were not saved. From 1840 to 1841 small numerals were used. These were the same as for the cents of that year. In 1842 both large and small numerals were used. The same is true for the 1850 and 1854-O eagles. In 1844 Gobrecht died and Longacre became the Engraver. His job consisted mainly of punching the dates and mintmarks into the working dies.

He made several blunders including 1846-O, 6 over 5; 1849 over 1848; 1853, 3 over 2; and 1865-S, 865/inverted 186. In this last one, the three numbers were entered upside down and then corrected.