The eagle was a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

$10

gold coin A gold coin is a coin that is made mostly or entirely of gold. Most gold coins minted since 1800 are 90–92% gold (22karat), while most of today's gold bullion coins are pure gold, such as the Britannia, Canadian Maple Leaf, and American Buf ...

issued by the

United States Mint The United States Mint is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury responsible for producing coinage for the United States to conduct its trade and commerce, as well as controlling the movement of bullion. It does not produce paper money; tha ...

from

1792 Events January–March * January 9 – The Treaty of Jassy ends the Russian Empire's war with the Ottoman Empire over Crimea. * February 18 – Thomas Holcroft produces the comedy '' The Road to Ruin'' in London. * February ...

to 1933. The eagle was the largest of the five main decimal base-units of denomination used for circulating coinage in the United States prior to 1933, the year when gold was withdrawn from circulation. These five main base-units of denomination were the

mill Mill may refer to: Science and technology * * Mill (grinding) * Milling (machining) * Millwork * Textile mill * Steel mill, a factory for the manufacture of steel * List of types of mill * Mill, the arithmetic unit of the Analytical Engine early ...

, the cent, the dime, the

dollar Dollar is the name of more than 20 currencies. They include the Australian dollar, Brunei dollar, Canadian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Jamaican dollar, Liberian dollar, Namibian dollar, New Taiwan dollar, New Zealand dollar, Singapore dollar, ...

, and the eagle, where a cent is 10 mills, a dime is 10 cents, a dollar is 10 dimes, and an eagle is 10 dollars. The eagle base-unit of denomination served as the basis of the

quarter eagle The quarter eagle was a gold coin issued by the United States with a value of two hundred and fifty cents, or two dollars and fifty cents. It was given its name in the Coinage Act of 1792, as a derivation from the US ten-dollar eagle coin. His ...

($2.50),

half eagle The half eagle is a United States coin that was produced for circulation from 1795 to 1929 and in commemorative and bullion coins since 1983. Composed almost entirely of gold, its face value of five dollars is half that of the eagle coin. Prod ...

($5), eagle ($10), and

double eagle A double eagle is a gold coin of the United States with a denomination of $20. (Its gold content of 0.9675 troy oz (30.0926 grams) was worth $20 at the 1849 official price of $20.67/oz.) The coins are 34 mm x 2 mm and are made from ...

($20) coins. With the exceptions of the gold dollar coin, the gold three-dollar coin, the

three-cent nickel The copper-nickel three-cent piece, often called a three-cent nickel piece or three-cent nickel, was designed by US Mint Chief Engraver James B. Longacre and struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint from 1865 to 1889. It was initially po ...

, and the five-cent nickel, the unit of denomination of coinage prior to 1933 was conceptually linked to the precious or semi-precious metal that constituted a majority of the

alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which at least one is a metal. Unlike chemical compounds with metallic bases, an alloy will retain all the properties of a metal in the resulting material, such as electrical conductivity, ductilit ...

used in that coin. In this regard the United States followed long-standing European practice of different base-unit denominations for different precious and semi-precious metals. In the United States, the cent was the base-unit of denomination in copper. The dime and dollar were the base-units of denomination in silver. The eagle was the base-unit of denomination in gold although, unlike "cent", "dime" (or "disme"), and "dollar", gold coins never specified their denomination in units of "eagles". Thus, a double eagle showed its value as "twenty dollars" rather than "two eagles". The United States' circulating eagle denomination from the late 18th century through to the first third of the 20th century should not be confused with the

American Eagle bullion coins American Eagle bullion coins are produced by the United States Mint. These include: * American Silver Eagle * American Gold Eagle * American Platinum Eagle The American Platinum Eagle is the official platinum bullion coin of the United States. ...

which are manufactured from

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

(since 1986),

platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Pla ...

(since 1997), or

palladium Palladium is a chemical element with the symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself na ...

(since 2017).

Years of production, and composition

Gold ''eagles'' were issued for circulation by the United States Mint from 1795–1933, ''half eagles'' from 1795–1929, ''quarter eagles'' from 1796–1929, and ''double eagles'' from 1850–1933, with occasional production gaps for each type. Except for the double eagle, the diameters of all these denominations were decreased over time. The following table presents the diameters of each of the denominations, in millimeters (mm), according to the first year that diameter was used:

22 karat "standard" gold

Originally the purity of all circulating gold coins in the United States was eleven twelfths pure gold (the same 22 karats level as English

crown gold Crown gold is a 22 karat (kt) gold alloy used in the crown coin introduced in England in 1526 (by Henry VIII). In this alloy, the proportion of gold is 22 parts out of 24 (91.667% gold)—and is appreciably less prone to wear than the softer 23 k ...

) and one twelfth ''alloy''. Under U.S. law (

Coinage Act of 1792 The Coinage Act of 1792 (also known as the Mint Act; officially: ''An act establishing a mint, and regulating the Coins of the United States''), passed by the United States Congress on April 2, 1792, created the United States dollar as the countr ...

), the alloy was composed only of silver and copper, with silver limited to no more than half of the alloy by weight. Thus, U.S. gold coins had 22/24 (22 kt or 91.667%) pure gold, ''at most'' 1/24 (0–4.167%) silver, with the remaining fraction, (4.167–8.333%), copper.

(Section 12
Coinage Act of April 2, 1792
at USmint.gov The

weight In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force acting on the object due to gravity. Some standard textbooks define weight as a vector quantity, the gravitational force acting on the object. Others define weight as a scalar qua ...

of circulating, standard gold, $10 eagles was set at 270

grains A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legumes ...

(17.5 g), half eagles at 135 grains (8.75 g), quarter eagles at 67.5 grains (4.37 g). This resulted in the $10 eagle containing of pure gold.

Gold content lowered to 89.92% (1834)

In 1834, the mint's 15:1 legal valuation of gold to silver (i.e. 15 weight units of silver and 1 weight unit of gold have the same legal monetary value) was changed to 16:1, and the metal weight-content standards for both gold and silver coins were changed, because at the old value ratio and weight content, it was profitable to export and melt U.S gold coins. As a result, the specification for ''standard gold'' was lowered from 22 karat (.9167 fine) to .8992 fine (21.58 kt).

Gold content raised to 90.0% (1837)

With the Coinage Act of 1837, passed on January 18, 1837, a small change in the fineness of the gold (increased to exactly .900 fine) was made, and the alloy (now 10% of the coin's weight) was again legally defined as silver and copper, with silver capped at no more than half. (i.e. 5% of total coin weight) The new standard for the $10 eagle was 258 grains (16.7 g) of .900 fine gold, giving pure gold content of 0.48375 ozt = 15.03 g, with other coins proportionately sized. Between 1838 and 1840, the silver content was reduced to zero—the eagle in 1838, half eagle in 1839, and quarter eagle in 1840,—resulting in U.S. gold coins being 90% gold and 10% copper. Using only copper as the alloy in gold coins matched longstanding English practice (see

).Gold coin collector historical composition info
Accessed July 9, 2009. The new standard would be used for all circulating gold coins until U.S. gold coin circulation was halted in 1933.

Post-1982 eagle modern commemorative coins

As part of its

Modern United States commemorative coins The United States Mint has minted numerous commemorative coins to commemorate persons, places, events, and institutions since 1848. Many of these coins are not intended for general circulation, but are still legal tender. The mint also produces ...

program the United States mint has issued several commemorative eagle coins. In 1984, an eagle was issued to commemorate the Summer Olympics, and another eagle was issued in 2003 to commemorate the Wright brothers first flight at Kitty Hawk. The pre-1933 .900 fine gold standard was restored, this would also be used in half-eagle gold commemoratives as well. The coins would be identical in fineness and size to their pre-1933 counterparts of the same face value. In 2000 a unique eagle, the Library of Congress bimetallic eagle, was issued commemorating the Library of Congress; it consisted of equal weights of an approximately 1/4 oz .9995 fine

core and a .900 fine gold outer ring.

List of designs

* Turban Head 1795–1804 **Turban Head, small eagle 1795–1797 **Turban Head, large eagle 1797–1804 *Liberty Head (Coronet) 1838–1907 **Coronet, without motto 1838–1866 **Coronet, with motto 1866–1907 * Indian Head 1907–1933

References

External links and references

US Gold Eagle by year and type.
Histories, photos, and more.
American Eagle production numbers
. {{DEFAULTSORT:Eagle (United States Coin) 1795 introductions United States gold coins Ten-base-unit coins Goddess of Liberty on coins Eagles on coins