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Message:: [QUOTE="johnmilton, post: 25305043, member: 101855"]Randy beat me to it, but I'll do it anyway. 1834 was a very important year in the history of U.S. gold coinage. That year, the Andrew Jackson administration pushed through a reduction in the weight of U.S. gold coins from 15 parts of silver equal to 1 part of gold to 16 parts of silver equal to 1 party of gold. Prior to that important reform, large numbers of U.S. gold coins were exported and melted. The law changed officially on August 1, 1834. The mint considered dating the new, lower weight coins as "August 1834" but dropped that idea. Instead they removed "E Pluribus Unum" from above the eagle on the reverse. Here are examples of both of the 1834 $5 gold coins. An old "heavy weight" gold piece struck prior to August 1834. These pieces are very scarce. The estimated number of survivors is less than 100.  [ATTACH=full]1616503[/ATTACH] And here is an August or later 1834 $5 gold coin. The people who didn't care for these pieces called them "mint drops" on the Hard Times tokens. This is one of the more common dates in the Classic Head $5 gold series. [ATTACH=full]1616504[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]