It’s likely that Heritage’s recent sale of a PCGS AU53 1875 Liberty Head eagle will go largely unnoticed by non-specialists. After all, million dollar coins are a common occurrence at coin auctions in the 2020s, and to get noticed today, a coin needs to hammer for at least $4+ million. But to those of us at a certain age, a million bucks is still a ton of money for a coin; especially a circulated coin and one which has flown under the radar for years.

Some background is in order.

*1875 $10.00 PCGS AU53, image courtesy of Heritage*

The 1875 is the undisputed key to the Liberty Head eagle series with likely no more than 10 known from an original mintage of just 100. Not only is it definitively rare from an overall perspective, it is also a grade rarity with none finer than AU53+ at PCGS. The coin at Heritage (lot 3261 in the September 2022 Long Beach sale to be specific) was graded AU53. It was very fresh, having last appeared at auction back in 1997 and it was well-pedigreed, having originally come from the James Carter sale (Stack’s 1/1986) which is known as a collection which contained mostly nice to very nice coins. I graded the coin 53+ to 55. The coin hammered at $850,000 which means that with the 20% buyer’s premium, it sold for $1,020,000. This is, by far, a world record for any business strike Liberty Head eagle.

I will freely admit that I was stunned by the price. In fact, I texted another dealer a few days before the sale and said I would like to split the coin in case it “fell through the cracks.” How 2019 of me…in 2022 almost nothing falls through the cracks at major auctions.

Here are some random thoughts:

In late 2019, a prominent venture capitalist contacted me about assembling a world-class set of Liberty Head eagles. I mentioned that there was, coincidentally, an important complete set of these which was coming on the market in February 2020. I was very familiar with the coins in the collection as I had sold the owner a number of them and the coin I urged him to focus on was the 1875.

I had purchased the coin in the set for the owner in 2018 for $372,000, and I remember telling the prospective new owner that I thought 1875 eagles were very underappreciated and that in the future it could be a $500,000-600,000+ coins. After preparing an extremely detailed proposal for this individual, he decided that the series was “too complicated” (his exact words…sigh) and he stopped communicating with me.

My point is this: I certainly didn’t expect the 1875 $10 to become a million dollar coin in 2022; let alone in my lifetime.

Before the Trophy Coin Era (which really began in earnest around 2020), the price of rare coins went up incrementally. A coin like an AU 1875 eagle was worth $150k in the 2000s, $250k in the early 2010s, and $350k in the early 2020s. Given its price history, one would have expected the next price increment for this date to have been $450k (maybe even $500k) in 2022. But this isn’t how values work today, and as a result we have yet another record price which is multiples higher than the previous peak of $372,000.

How will this price impact comparable Liberty Head gold coins? The two issues which I think are most closely aligned with the 1875 eagle are the 1854-S quarter eagle and the 1875 half eagle.

*1854-S $2.50 in PCGS VF35 from the DWN archives*

The 1854-S quarter eagle is slightly less rare than the 1875 eagle in terms of overall rarity but it is rarer in high grades (in this case AU and finer). The most recent sale of a nice 1854-S was in March 2020 when the Pogue-Bass PCGS AU50 brought $384,000. Given that a PCGS VG10 sold for $360,000 in May 2022, I’d say that the AU50 was a pretty good deal, no?

*1875 $5.00 in NGC AU55 from the DWN archives*

The 1875 half eagle is virtually equal in terms of overall and condition rarity to its big brother the 1875 eagle. An exceptionally nice PCGS/CAC AU53 1875 half eagle brought $480,000 as Stack’s Bowers 4/2022: 5137. This seemed like a really strong price at the time but now it seems like a really fair one. It is part of a series with more collectors than Liberty Head eagles and it was a slightly nicer coin (in my opinion) than the PCGS AU53 1875 eagle which just eclipsed the $1 million mark.

If you bought either of these two coins, congratulations; you are a winner. I can think of at least three other collectors who should be buying their significant other an extra nice dinner tonight.

The Southern California collector to whom I sold the Dallas Bank Collection coin (a solid EF45 or better) back in 2001 for around $40,000. Nice purchase!
DL Hansen who purchased the PCGS AU50 in February 2020 I mentioned above for $360,000. It was a good purchase then and it looks even better today.
The owner of the Tyrant Collection (likely the savviest rare coin collector in the US if not on the face of the Earth) who owns multiple examples of this date in both business strike and Proof formats.

What will be the next under-the-radar $1 million dollar US gold coin? Let me know your thoughts on this.