The response to the article that I wrote last month on the ten rarest Liberty Head eagles was so overwhelmingly positive that I’ve decided to extend this format to other denominations of Liberty Head gold. This month’s topic: quarter eagles. The Liberty Head quarter eagle series was produced from 1840 through 1907. Unlike the larger denomination issues of this type, quarter eagles were never produced at the Carson City or Denver mints.

This article is about the ten rarest Liberty Head eagles. Notice that I didn’t say “the ten most popular” or “the ten most expensive.” Readers may be surprised that this top ten list does not include any Carson City issues (although I was tempted to include the 1870-CC) and just one from New Orleans.

In the five years since I wrote the second edition of my book on Dahlonega gold coinage, a number of important coins have been sold and some significant changes are going to be have to be made when I release my third edition (which, if I had to guess, will be out in another year or so). I think it would be interesting to look at the ten rarest Dahlonega gold coins and see what important things have changed about them since 2003.

There are many ways to collect Charlotte gold. Some people have only a mild interest in these coins and may buy just one or two pieces. Other people are more serious and they have a large number of Charlotte issues in their collection. A small number of Charlotte collectors are obsessives who focus exclusively on these pieces and do not collect anything else. I would like to make some suggestions on how to collect Charlotte gold.

Sure, every gold coin collector would love to have an unlimited budget. But few do. Is it possible to be an individual of average or slightly above-average means and still be a collector of U.S. gold? I contend that the answer is a resounding “yes” and I’d like to suggest a dozen collecting areas that are priced at $2,500 or less. My basic parameters are that each is undervalued, interesting to collect and they can be found with some patience.

Instead of focusing on specific issues (which, for the collector, can be like finding a needle in a haystack) I’m going to be a bit more general and focus on small groups or subsets of coins. Not every date within this group may be of interest to the collector (or fall within the parameters of affordability that we have established) but enough will qualify to make them worthy of serious consideration.

If you collect very rare or finest known coins, figuring out what to pay for an item that you need for your collection can be difficult. Here is a real-life example of how I came up with what I believe to be an accurate value for a one-of-a-kind coin.

The coin that we are going to use as our Coin Pricing Lab Experiment is the Finest Known 1860-C half eagle; an item that my firm recently handled.