The SilverTowne Vault Blog

100 Greatest U.S. Coins Series: 1838 Proof Liberty Head Eagle

Published 09/14/2026

Mintage: four. Certified population: three. Availability: scarce. Desirability: priceless. Our blog series covers quite the heavy hitter this go around as we continue our journey following along with Whitman Publishing's fourth edition of the 100 Greatest United States Coins. Author Jeff Garrett leads us through why this gold coin has made such an impact on numismatics.

#34 – 1838 Proof Liberty Head Eagle

Early gold coinage, while highly sought after by collectors today, proved to be quite the learning curve that came with a fair number of hiccups. One of those hiccups came in the form of an inaccurate relative value rate of silver to gold. Congress originally formulated this rate at 15 to 1. It was found that this rate should have been more like 16 to 1, which resulted in early United States gold coins being melted and sold or more than its face value in terms of silver. That is, in large part, why gold coins from early minting days are rare.

With the inaccurate rate came the suspension of production of $10 gold coins from the United...read more