1803/2 Half Eagle (1803/2 $5) NGC MS62, BD-4. For sale is an 1803/2 $5 Half Eagle graded MS-62 by NGC. All 1803 Half Eagles are overdates. The 1803/2 overdate Half Eagle has a mintage of 33,000 coins with 144 having been graded as Mint State. This coins gleaming surfaces nicely compliment its sharply struck devices.

The first gold coins produced by the United States were the Half Eagles of 1795. Chief Engraver Robert Scot designed the first half eagles and there design featured a portrait of Liberty in a soft cap, and the reverse, adapted from an ancient Roman cameo, depicted a naturalistic small eagle perched on a simple branch. The small eagle, however, proved immediately unpopular, being characterized by many as "scrawny."

Scot set out to design a coin that would appeal to all of the critics as well as improve the look of the coin. His resulting design, the Heraldic Eagle, was based on the bird gracing the Great Seal of the United States. The eagle design is referred to as the Heraldic Eagle because the eagle used on the reverse of the Half Eagle was based on the Great Seal of the United States. Scot's version combined a chicken-like head with a body wide enough to hold the thirteen-stripe shield. The upraised wings are thin, partly covered by a flowing scroll inscribed E PLURIBUS UNUM. Clouds overhead frame thirteen to sixteen stars symbolizing the original states and three new ones formed after independence. Scot blundered in one respect, however, apparently forgetting that directions are reversed in heraldry, which regards the eagle as if it were a person facing the viewer. The eagle's right or "dexter" side is therefore the viewer's left or "sinister" side. Thirteen arrows are in the eagle's right claw, an omen of war. This oddity continued until the series ended in 1807.

In 1807, the new Mint Director, Robert Patterson, appointed German engraver John Reich as assistant to Scot. Reich's first assignment was to improve the coinage designs. Six months after his arrival, the new half eagles appeared, this time with a capped bust of Liberty facing left, and a new reverse with a more natural and peaceful looking eagle.