History of the American Silver Eagle
The American Silver Eagle is the silver bullion coin that is one of America’s most popular collectible coins. Although the price of the coin rises and falls in conjunction with the overall demand for silver in today’s market, the more rare coins are more expensive and the commoner coins can be bought for around $35 a piece. The history of the American Silver Eagle may not be quite as convoluted and interesting as the histories of some of the other popular silver collectible coins, but it is still worth knowing a little bit about if you plan on collecting these coins for fun or as an investment for the future.
The American Silver Eagle was first released in 1986, and it was never meant to be a circulating coin. Instead, it presents a way for investors to stock up on silver, a precious metal that makes a good hedge investment to protect financial stability, in small quantities. The coin has a face value of a dollar, although it is worth much more, especially because of the fact that it contains an entire ounce of almost perfectly pure silver.
This coin has been minted ever since it was first released, and it’s only ever been minted by three different mints. Looking for the mintmark, which is a small letter impressed on the coin, on the reverse side, which features an eagle, will tell you where the coin was minted. The coins will either have a P for Philadelphia, an S for San Francisco, or a W for West Point.
The two sides of this coin were, interestingly enough, created by different designers. The obverse side features a graceful Lady Liberty walking into a rising sun, and the reverse side features the U.S. eagle with a seal and thirteen stars over his head. The original eagle design was by John Mercanti, and the design for “Walking Liberty” was by Adolph A. Weinman. The same Lady Liberty had been used on the U.S. half dollar from 1916 to 1947, and it was used again on this coin because Americans loved it so much.
Other than these facts, the history of the American Silver Eagle doesn’t take too many twists and turns. You can easily find some of the more common editions of the coin for a very low price, but there are also rarer editions – mainly those from years in which few of the coins were minted and some interesting proofs – that can run into the thousands of dollars.