Only one 1849 double eagle is known to survive and it rests in the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian. It was struck until replaced by the Saint-Gaudens double eagle in 1907, and many were melted when President Franklin D. Roosevelt recalled gold coins from the public in 1933. Millions of double eagles were sent overseas in international transactions throughout its run.
About Liberty Head double eagle in brief
Only one 1849 double eagle is known to survive and it rests in the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian. It was struck until replaced by the Saint-Gaudens double eagle in 1907, and many were melted when President Franklin D. Roosevelt recalled gold coins from the public in 1933. Millions of double eagles were sent overseas in international transactions throughout its run to be melted or placed in bank vaults. Many of the latter have now been repatriated to feed the demand from collectors and those who desire to hold gold. The largest denomination of U.S. coin authorized by the Mint Act of 1792 was the eagle, or ten-dollar piece. The large amount of bullion being brought east after the discovery of gold in California in the 1840s caused Congress to consider new denominations of gold coinage. After considerable infighting at the Philadelphia Mint, Chief Engraver James B. Longacre designed the double eagle, and it began to be issued for commerce in 1850. In 1849, North Carolina Congressman James Iver McKay amended his previously introduced legislation for a gold dollar to provide for a double eagle as well. The bill passed both houses by large margins, and was signed into law by President James K. Polk on March 3, 1849. According to numismatist David Lange, the coin was immediately successful; merchants and banks used it in trade. The coin was struck to a design by Christian Gobrecht, who was one of the Mint’s engravers.
The eagle’s size made it convenient for use ininternational transactions, and, faced with the likelihood that most being struck were exported, the Director of the mint Elias Boudinot ended its production in 1804. Some merchants sometimes used high-denomination Latin American gold coins for that purpose. The increase in the supply of gold caused silver coins to be worth more than their face value, and they were heavily exported, generating new support for aGold dollar to take their place in commerce. The dollar was attacked on the ground it would be too small, and would be heavily abaded, and on the claim that it would become lightweight. In. 1836, the Public Ledger, a Philadelphia newspaper, proposed the issuance of both a golddollar and a twenty-dollar. piece. They wrote that the latter, which has the size of our silver dollar, would contain the value of twenty. Nevertheless, the bill was passed by both houses and signed by President K.K. Polk in March 1849; the coin is now in the Smithsonian’s numismatic collection. The gold dollar was not struck until after the Second World War, when it was struck as a pattern coin in 1852. The double eagle was struck in 1849 as a 20-dollar gold piece, and for commerce from 1850 to 1907. It has a diameter of 1.5 inches (4.5 centimeters) and a weight of 1,000 grams (3.5 ounces)
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This page is based on the article Liberty Head double eagle published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 31, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
