1797 Half Eagle - A rare
and underrated issue, the 1797 half eagle ($5 gold piece) with
the heraldic eagle or large eagle reverse is seldom available
in any grade. 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, which is the only
one which is available to collectors, has an estimated 16-20
known. 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 1795 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 1795 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 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 1795 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.
We at U.S. Rare Coin
Investments highly recommend these coins for investments portfolios.
Whether a single coin or the long term acquisition of them
with the goal of building a set in terms of historical importances
as well as longterm profit potential, cannot be overstated
in our opinion.
