United States: 1834 gold Classic Head quarter eagle ($2.50)

United States: 1834 gold Classic Head quarter eagle ($2.50)

PCGS XF40. Cert. #39396094.

Numista-55092, Krause-Mishler-56.

Mintage: 112,234.

Ex-Michael Swoveland, dba WNC Coins, LLC, Asheville, NC, 27 April 2021. Purchased in the slab.

I've always liked Classic Head gold, mostly because the quarter-eagles and half-eagles of this type are the earliest US gold coins I've ever been able to afford. Before 1834, United States gold coins get prohibitively expensive for the average working class collector! At the time of this writing (January 2026), this coin has more than doubled in value over the price I paid for it. The steep rise of gold prices no doubt had plenty to do with that, but there's some numismatic premium here as well.

This is only the second Classic Head quarter-eagle I've owned, and the previous example was a holed piece, which I wore on my formerly-famous "Holey Gold Hat".

I'm not delighted with the darkish PCGS TrueView images, but they were shot after certification, through the slab plastic, as were all of the photos below.



060000

 

I looked up what $2.50 in 1834 was equivalent in to in purchasing power in 2026 dollars, and that equates to about $94.22 today. So this one smallish coin likely represented several day's wages at the time. Woe to someone who lost it!

 

I used to love that magazine. I remember when a local buddy of mine was featured in the Ten Best Finds one year. (Unfortunately I don't recall what it was that he found to win that. He used to find some amazing stuff.)

No, I doubt a quarter-eagle like this would represent a whole month's wages for a common worker. But a few days, maybe.