Half Eagles
1797/5 Capped Bust $5, Large Eagle NGC MS61
Written/Compiled by Dennis
Hengeveld
A rare and underrated issue, the 1797 $5 gold
piece with the heraldic eagle reverse is seldom available in
any grade, especially with any originality. While the known
pieces were struck from a total of three die pairs, two of
these die pairs only have single coins that represent them.
The final variety has only an estimated 16 to 20 pieces
known in all grades. As both unique varieties are
permanently impounded in the Smithsonian collection that
number is the total supply of 1797 half eagles available to
collectors. As such, this is a very rare issue that is often
overlooked by the more storied coins of the same era, like
the 1797 large eagle and 1798 small eagle $5 gold pieces.
Unknown to most collectors is that the unique varieties are
both normal 1797 dates, whereas the “common” variety was
overdated from an unused 1797 die and thus is correctly
identified as 1797/5. The overdate is extremely sharp on the
known pieces, and can be readily identified even without
magnification.
It is very well possible that the majority,
if not all of the coinage of 1797 heraldic eagle pieces
actually occurred in early or perhaps even late 1798.
During September and October of 1797, the Philadelphia
Mint was closed due to a yellow fever epidemic in the
city not to reopen until early November. A few months
earlier, the small eagle reverse design had been changed
to a heraldic eagle, but when exactly this happened
remains unclear. It is known that one of the unique
varieties were struck before the final 1797 dated coins
had been struck, and this could have very well been
during the last two months of 1798. The Mint delivered
large quantities of $5 gold pieces during 1798, and of
the total mintage struck during the calendar year it has
been estimated that between 530 and 1,150 were dated
1797. This is an extremely small number for a year in
which a total of 24,867 half eagles were struck. Walter
Breen suggested that the total 1797 mintage might have
been included in the final delivery of the year, which
totaled 3,226 pieces delivered on December 5th.
Because most people do not collect these
fascinating gold coins by date, let alone by mintmark, this
issue goes largely unnoticed. It is not the first, nor the
last of the type, and in fact it is not the rarest date in
the series. As a result, even the major researchers have
only noticed the varieties for this date and have not done
specific research to the circumstances that led to the
creation of this, and similar half eagles of the same era.
While the scenario seems highly unlikely it might be
possible that a document is discovered with a specific
listing of all dies which were used for coinage and specific
deliveries during the late 19th century. Unfortunately, such
a document has never been found over the last 200 years, and
thus we have to do our research on the known sources and
come up with our own (possible incorrect) conclusions.
As can be guessed from the extremely limited number of
pieces known auction appearances are very sparse. In
fact, some major auction companies which have been
selling coins for decades have not sold a single example
of this variety in recent years. Only one Mint State
piece has been confirmed to exist, and while another has
been graded as “uncirculated with cabinet friction” it
in fact is an About Uncirculated coin. That is the grade
in which this issue is usually found, together with
Extremely Fine coins. Similar to other early gold coins
lower grades are rare or non-existent, and cleaned and
damaged pieces are usually around. Because of the rarity
of this date, however, that is not the case and every
offering should be considered with great care.
