What is an Eagle? According to my 1975 Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, it is a diurnal bird of prey noted for its strength, size, gracefulness, keenness of vision and powers of flight; the silver insignia of rank for an Army colonel or a Navy captain; or a member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles. In golf, it is the completion of a hole in two strokes less than par. In gold, it is a coin!

Specifically, my Webster’s says it is a ten-dollar gold coin of the U.S. bearing an eagle on the reverse. My 1969 American Heritage Dictionary goes so far as to call it a “former” gold coin of the United States having a face value of ten dollars, without specifying if it was “formerly gold” since transmuted into base metal, “formerly a coin” but now demonetized, or something that has ceased in an Orwellian way to have ever existed at all.

However, either antiquated edition might as well have been set in type by Gutenberg, as they both predate the current American Eagle one ounce gold coin first struck in 1986 with a face value of $50. This new coin left us with two different legal tender “Eagles” of different weights, sizes, finenesses (usually) and denominations, and hardly a day goes by at Berk’s that we do not have to explain the difference to a would-be customer.

How did the first Eagle come to be? The path is long and twisted. It began with the Articles of Confederation, approved by the Continental Congress on November 15, 1777, but not ratified by the states until March 1, 1781, which reserved for the newly-named “United States in Congress Assembled” the sole right to regulate the values, compositions and alloys of coins struck by itself or by the various states.

A central authority was certainly needed, as the paper money of the 13 states and the Republic of Vermont, which was generally based upon a promise to pay the bearer Spanish Milled Dollars or fractions thereof, valued the “Dollar” at anywhere from 4-1/2 to 8 state shillings per 8 Reales coin, and the money of one state was not easily convertible into the money of its neighbor.

On January 15, 1782, Robert Morris, then Superintendent of Finance, presented to Congress a plan to establish a Mint and a monetary system based upon the Spanish Dollar, that would be compatible with most of the paper money in circulation and could circulate alongside it. Morris’ plan, prepared in large part by his unrelated namesake and assistant Gouverneur Morris in anticipation of a Congressional request for same, divided the Dollar into 1,440 parts or units, this figure being the approximate number of one-quarter grains of pure silver in an 8 Reales, and a number more or less evenly divisible by the units of account used by the different states (except for South Carolina, where inflation had pushed the Dollar to 32-1/2 shillings).
From this ungainly figure a decimal coinage system of 1,000, 500 and 100 silver unit coins was to be derived, the coins being equivalent to nothing then in circulation. Although the Mint was approved in principle on February 21, 1782, little was done about it for the next ten years.

The Morrises’ decimal system was never approved, although a few patterns based upon this system were prepared in April of 1783 by craftsmen hired by Superintendent Morris for the Mint that did not happen. Curiously, the 100 unit coin, sometimes called a Bit, was also referred to as a Cent, taking the traditional usage of the Latin word centum to mean one hundred items rather than the modern usage of one-hundredth of an item.

At some later point in 1783, perhaps after consultation with Thomas Jefferson, Morris amended his proposal to make the 1,000 quarter-grain coin, now to be known as a Dollar or Ten Bits, the Unit of his system. The 100 quarter-grain Bit was also to be considered a Ten Pence coin, and a One Penny coin equal in value to 10 quarter grains of silver, though probably to be struck in copper, rounded out the lower end of his system.

At the upper end, however, he proposed a gold Ten Dollars or “Crown,” the name derived from a proposed design for it which showed an American Indian with bow and 13 arrows standing with his foot upon a crown, representing the American victory over the British monarchy. It is unclear whether the idea for the design and/or the name of the coin were his or Jefferson’s.

A variation of this design with the huntress Diana replacing the Indian, attributed by Breen to Jefferson, survives on the 1785 CONFEDERATIO Copper pattern with legend INIMICA TYRANNIS AMERICA. Though the Morrises continued to propose other systems with other names and units without success, they should probably be given credit for introducing both the decimal system and the Ten Dollar denomination to American coinage.

In June of 1783 Jefferson was elected to the Continental Congress, and soon thereafter appointed as chairman of a currency committee. He strongly recommended the Spanish Dollar itself rather than the Morris Dollar as the unit of account, being familiar to the people and commonly available.

He likewise recommended a decimal system for the fractional parts of the Dollar, as being easier to multiply and divide than the base eight Real system. To see his point, check the New York Stock Exchange quotes which to this day are given in dollars and eighths of a dollar, based upon the 8 Reales system still in effect when the NYSE was founded in 1792, and try to figure out what 147 shares of a stock valued at $37-3/8 per share is worth.

His original suggestion called for a gold $10 piece, a silver Dollar and Half Dollar, a silver Fifth and Tenth Dollar, and a copper Hundredth Dollar. The Dollar and Half Dollar would have been equal to the Spanish 8 and 4 Reales, while the Fifth or “Double Tenth” would be equal to the Spanish Pistareen and approximately equal to the French Livre which was familiar from French war loans. The Tenth and Hundredth had no equivalents, but were necessary to reinforce the decimal format.

Although the Grand Committee originally accepted Jefferson’s proposal as submitted, it made several modifications, mostly technical changes affecting weights and minting charges, before formally proposing it to Congress in May of 1785. The recommendations would have established a monetary system consisting of a gold $5 coin, being approximately equal to the British Guinea and several other useful foreign gold coins, a silver Dollar plus its fractions of 1/2, 1/4 (rather than 1/5), 1/10 and 1/20 dollars, and copper coins at 1/100 and 1/200th of a Dollar.

Apparently the Committee omitted the $10 denomination from Jefferson’s proposal because it was too large a denomination to be practical in day to day commerce, while adding the 1/200 Dollar at the urging of Morris who had been a merchant in private life and advocated coins of very small units of account as an accommodation to commerce.

Nevertheless, the Grand Committee of Congress on July 6, 1785, passed a resolution that included all of Jefferson’s proposed coins plus a few others. Perhaps as a political compromise, it included the historical requirement for both a $10 “Eagle” and a $5 “Half Eagle,” these names apparently derived from the specification that a picture of an eagle appear on each of them.

The bald eagle had been established as our national symbol on the Great Seal of the United States in 1782. The choice was not unanimous, as the great statesman Ben Franklin dismissed the eagle as a scavenger, and promoted the wild turkey as our national symbol! One can imagine the implications at a modern Thanksgiving. One Continental Congressman humorously suggested the goose for our Dollar and the gosling for its fractions!

Jefferson’s “Tenth” was called a “Disme” (which term Neil Carothers in “Fractional Money” traces to the late 16th Century) and its fractional part the “Half Disme”, while the “Fifth” became a “Double-Disme.” The 1/100th and 1/200th coins were named the “Cent” and “Half Cent.” The Quarter Dollar or 2 Reales equivalent proposed by the Grand Committee was rejected, but as the only coin ever struck to this system was the Fugio Cent of 1787 the point was moot.

After the new U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1788 and George Washington was sworn in as President in 1789, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton was commissioned by Congress in April of 1790 to resolve the questions of the monetary system and a Mint. After extensive examination of the various foreign coinages in circulation in America, Hamilton decided that much of it had lost weight and therefore value due to wear and debasement.

For this reason, he recommended to Congress on January 28, 1791, that a Mint be established by the United States to be constructed in the United States, using a strict and somewhat impractical decimal system that included only a gold $10 Eagle, a gold $1 unit, an equivalent silver Dollar Unit, a silver Tenth Unit, a copper Hundredth Unit and a smaller copper coin half of that.

A bill incorporating most of Jefferson’s July 6, 1785, decimal system rather than Hamilton’s abbreviated system was passed on April 2, 1792 as “An Act Establishing a Mint and Regulating the Coins of the United States.” The four basic denominations named in the bill were the gold Eagle, the silver Dollar, the Disme and the Cent, in this usage believed to be a shortening of the French centime, or hundredth.

Added to these benchmark denominations were the Half Dollar and the Quarter Dollar, the latter again edging out Jefferson’s Double Disme, the pair intended to be equal to the Four Reales and Two Reales then in circulation. Their gold counterparts set at 10 times their values gave us the Half Eagle and Quarter Eagle, the latter a new innovation. At the lower end of the scale the Half Disme and the Half Cent equal to 1/10 and 1/100 of a Half Dollar were also added, while a Quarter Disme (about equal to the later silver three cents) and a Quarter Cent (a la the British Farthing, or four-thing) were not considered.

Only cents were struck in 1793, as the Mint had not yet obtained the security bonds necessary for its officers to handle precious metals. In 1794 the silver coinage began, though not without difficulties, and gold production did not begin until the following year as no gold was received in deposit until February 12, 1795.

Beginning in May of 1795, Chief Engraver Robert Scot proceeded under orders from outgoing Mint Director David Rittenhouse to engrave dies for a gold Eagle and Half Eagle. The first Half Eagles were delivered 200 years ago on July 31, and the first Eagles on September 22 of that year. The fineness of these coins had been previously set at 22kt or .9167 fine, as that was the fineness of the British Guinea and several other coins and they could be melted and recoined without being refined first.

The origin of the obverse design is unknown, and is perhaps just Scot’s reworking of the Cent design placing the cap on Liberty’s head rather than a pole or wand and adding a few drapery folds at the bust line for modesty’s sake. Popular legend says that the portrait is that of Martha Washington in the fashionable garb of the day, but this is unproven. The face is somewhat improved compared to the Cent, and Liberty wears a slight smile. The border is denticled, the edge reeded to discourage filing.

The reverse shows an eagle with outstretched wings holding an olive wreath upwards in its beak and a palm branch clutched in its talons. Breen states that it was copied from a First Century (probably B.C., though Breen uses A.D. in one reference) Roman cameo showing an eagle in profile holding an olive wreath and palm branch in similar style.

The legend UNITED STATES OF AMERICA surrounded the border, there being no indication of value on either coin. Like its British counterpart, the Guinea, the Half Eagle was expected to circulate at the current intrinsic value of its gold, which might or might not remain equivalent to five silver Dollars.

The first $10 reverse shows 13 leaves on the palm branch that may have referred to the original 13 colonies, but as this crowded the design a bit the number was reduced. The obverses of these issues bore 15 stars before Tennessee was admitted to the Union and 16 thereafter, plus the word LIBERTY which was crowded to the right a bit by the peak of the cap, and the date below the bust.

In 1797 a Heraldic Eagle reverse based upon the Great Seal of the United States replaced the eagle with wreath reverse. Much has been written elsewhere about the heraldic faux pas of placing the arrows of war in the eagle’s dominant right claw rather than the olive branch of peace, but it is likely that Scot simply did not know the difference. It is remotely possible that the positioning was a deliberate attempt to warn the warring European powers to leave us alone, but such an effort was likely to go unnoticed.

Coinage of the Eagle was suspended in 1804 when the government determined that they were undervalued relative to silver and were being exported and/or melted. The denomination resumed in 1838 with the Coronet Head design by Christian Gobrecht, which lasted 70 years until 1907.

Augustus Saint Gaudens beautiful Indian Head design replaced the Liberty Head in 1907, though the portrait is that of a Greek goddess with a headdress placed upon it. Coinage was suspended again in 1933 when Franklin Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard, and ordered virtually all of the gold coins in existence melted.

The Eagle returned in 1986 in the form of the American Eagle gold coin series, the one ounce coin having the face value of $50. The Half Eagle has a denomination of $25, while the Quarter Eagle is valued at only $10 (shades of Jefferson’s Fifth!). The Tenth Eagle is a sensible $5.

Created to replace the South African Krugerrand in the bullion trade, the American Eagles were deliberately set at the sizes and fineness of the South African coins. Because South Africa was a former British possession, all of its gold coins were made to British 22kt standards.

Without realizing it, Congress thus recreated the original 1795 fineness of the Eagle for the new American Eagle. Unfortunately, this is likely to be as close as we get to a recognition of the historic event of the first American gold coinage 200 years ago this Summer.

Republished with Permission from Harlan J Berk

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