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Message:: [QUOTE="Mark Feld, post: 309598, member: 11467"]"For that matter, why no CAL 1/2 Eagles, or $10 Eagles ?" The text below is from a Heritage Auction Galleries description of an 1848 CAL. Quarter Eagle. It makes it sound as if perhaps Quarter Eagles (rather than other, larger denomination gold coins) were chosen in order that more people be given the opportunity to acquire a coin made of the "California gold".  "Shortly after the discovery of gold in the American River region of California, some 228 ounces of Gold Rush bullion was sent by California's military governor, Colonel R.B. Mason, to Secretary of War William Learned Marcy. This was the first shipment east from the west coast's rich deposits. Marcy in turn sent the gold ore to Mint Director Robert Maskell Patterson at the Philadelphia Mint, where it was received on December 8 and was assayed at an average .894 fine. Marcy urged that, "As many may desire to procure specimens of coin made of the California gold, by exchanging other coin for it, I would suggest that it be made into quarter eagles with a distinguishing mark on each..."[/QUOTE]