1806 Half Eagle  - 1806 $5 NGC F15 CAC. BD-1, Pointed 6. This 1806 Draped Bust Half Eagle has an above average reverse strike and some remaining mint luster in protected areas. Full details are still visible on the shield and the eagles upper right wing. The surfaces are original and clean for the grade. Libertys hair is outlined and the reverse motto is readable. The grade is confirmed by the CAC sticker, which indicates that the coin is of premium quality and well within the assigned grade range.

Robert Scot designed the Turban Head or Capped Bust half eagle. The obverse design shows a profile of Liberty facing right. Below her is the date which is off center to the left. Between the date and the word LIBERTY on the left side of the coin are 8 stars. Another 5 stars follow LIBERTY down to the bust. Liberty wears a large, soft cap. Her hair flows down and also shows on her forehead. The design was probably taken from a Roman engraving of a Greek goddess. Libertys cap was certainly not a Phrygian or liberty cap. The liberty cap, emblematic of freedom, was worn by freed slaves and freed gladiators in Roman times. It was a close fitting cap used to cover a shorn head, which was one of the ways slaves were identified. Because of the way Libertys hair strands wrap around it, the oversized cap has been called a turban, and the design has been called the Turban Head because of it.

The Type 2 reverse, issued in 1797, shows a heraldic eagle. However, Scot mixed up the positions of the arrows and olive branch. The arrows held in the wrong claw signify defiant militarism. Either Scot made an error copying the image of the Great Seal, or he deliberately changed the symbolism in keeping with very warlike stance. Considering that the United States at this time was engaged in a naval war with France (the undeclared Franco-American War of 1798 to 1800, which took place on the East coast of North America and the Caribbean and resulted in the end of French privateer attacks on U.S. shipping), the latter is probably more likely. The French would be especially sensitive to a message within the heraldry, and the young United States was brash in that they had just defeated the super power, England in gaining independence. In the field above the eagle are thirteen stars and above them, an arc of clouds. A banner from wing to wing has the motto E PLURIBUS UNUM.

The coin is a BD-1 because it has a pointed 6, and Stars 1 and 2 have two points that nearly touch each other. On the reverse, Star 13 is missing most of its lower point, and both Ts in STATES have a broken right foot.

In its population report, as of June 2012, CAC has confirmed 1 8x5 1806 Draped Bust Large Eagle half eagles in F15 condition with 8 better.