Early $2 1/2 Quarter Eagles, 1796-1839

The Federal government, in the Act of April 2, 1792, authorized the gold $2 1/2 Quarter Eagle denomination, though the mint did not strike these coins until 1796. During these early years, the minting techniques were quite crude compared to those of later years, and designs changed frequently. In fact, there are five separate and distinct designs for those quarter eagles struck between 1796 and 1839. Within these six designs are 24+ confirmed dates and varieties of dates to collect. These include:

1796 Capped Bust Right, No Obverse Stars Type
1796-1807 Capped Bust to Right, Stars Type
1808 Capped Bust to Left Type
1821-1827 Capped Head to Left, Large Size Type
1829-1834 Capped Head to Left, Reduced Size Type
1834-1839 Classic Head Type

During the period of 1796 to 1839, the Philadelphia mint is reported to have minted a total number of only 64,262 gold Quarter Eagles, or an average of 2,677 per year authorized. Since most of these coins were intended to circulate freely, the attrition rate for all of these coins is extreme due to day-to-day commerce, collector negligence and the government recall or melting of privately held gold coinage. Most experts will agree that less than 1% of the original mintage exists in all states-of-preservation today!

Most dates within the Early Quarter Eagle series cannot be found very easily and when available, are usually at public auction. The bidder competition for these very rare coins can be fierce and it is not unusual to have new records set each time a coin appears for sale. The issues of 1796 and 1808, because they are one-year type coins, are in extreme demand from both date and type collectors. In general, most dates prior to the "classic head" type are considered rare. Of these early issues, there is not a single date with a mintage over 7,000 coins, and 5 individual dates have mintages of less than 1,000 pieces. Among the "classic head" issues, the scarcest piece is the low mintage Charlotte mint issue of 1838 which was the first branch mint quarter eagle coined.