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Forty years ago, President Ronald Reagan signed the Liberty Coin Act into law. Among its provisions was the production and issuance of bullion coins, the first such coins produced for sale to the American public. American Gold and Silver Eagles (AGEs and ASEs, respectively), introduced in the fall of 1986, became and remain popular not simply as precious metals investment vehicles but as collectible U.S. coins in their own right. With several genuinely rare dates and numerous finishes, the decades-long series appeals to numismatists interested in ultra-modern Mint products and bullion stackers alike.
Four decades after the enactment of legislation introducing the American Eagle bullion coin program, the coins have emerged as a collectible series in their own right, offering silver stackers and numismatists alike an ongoing selection of products. Beginning in the late 1970s, talk emerged in government circles about liquidating precious metals held in the Defense National Stockpile Center, holdings of strategic raw materials created in the years leading up to the Second World War. Efforts to make precious metals available to the public and to generate revenue motivated the selloff, further justified by a large domestic silver supply.
In the 2018 third edition of American Silver Eagles: A Guide to the U.S. Bullion Coin Program, John Mercanti explains the thought process of the silver senators navigating legislative efforts to sell the silver by striking bullion coins: “We can’t fight the silver selloff forever; if it has to occur, at least we try to control it.”
Political wrangling through the early-to-mid 1980s resulted in the Liberty Coin Act, legislation authorizing both bullion coins and a trio of commemorative coins honoring the Statue of Liberty. The silver bullion coins were to “have a design (A) symbolic of liberty on the obverse side; and (B) and [an] eagle on the reverse side” and contain one ounce of .999 fine silver.
The coin’s obverse design was an adaptation of Adolph Weinman’s Walking Liberty motif, which had appeared on the half dollars for decades from 1916 to 1947. According to reporting in CoinWeek, the design was selected because Treasury officials did not have sufficient time to solicit original designs. John Mercanti, a staff engraver at the Mint since 1974, designed the reverse, which was a traditional eagle resembling the Great Seal of the United States. In his book, Mercanti explains: “I didn’t want a flying eagle for the American Silver Eagle coin… I wanted something more formal; more heraldic.” The result was a motif described as the Heraldic Eagle reverse.
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The bill became Public Law 99-61 with President Reagan’s signature on July 9, 1985. The coins entered production in October of 1986 with a ceremony attended by Treasury officials. Bullion strike and proof coins were struck at the San Francisco Assay Office that year, a fact uncovered in 2020 by Paul Gilkes of Coin World via a Freedom of Information Act request. Only the proof issues bore that facility’s “S” mintmark.
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Third-party grading entered the numismatic scene around the same time as the American Eagle bullion coins; PCGS launched the same year as the new bullion coins, in 1986. Populations have ballooned over the intervening decades and numerous labels and other encapsulation programs. In an email interview for this piece, Joshua McMorrow-Hernandez, editor-in-chief of PCGS Insider, said that “third-party grading cultivated the rise of the ‘70’ collector -- someone who builds collections of American Silver Eagles graded only MS70, PR70, and / or SP70. This in turn helped the numismatic world realize just how scarce some of these coins really are in the coveted grade of 70. Take a look at some of the populations for 70-graded silver eagles from the 1980s and '90s, especially bullion strikes, and you'll see what I mean. Among the early silver eagles, the 1988 is especially scarce in MS70, while the 1993 and 1994 offer fewer than 120 specimens each in a grade of PCGS MS70. The scarcity of premium-grade American Silver Eagles fosters an exciting degree of competition among collectors on the PCGS Set Registry, a collecting platform that in itself has helped fuel terrific interest in modern coins like the American Silver Eagle.”
Major anniversaries or milestones of the program have been marked by the issuance of ASEs differentiated in some way from their bullion or proof counterparts, and a couple of ASEs issued in the last decade blurred the line between bullion and commemorative coins. To mark the series’ 10th anniversary, the Mint produced a proof set of all AGE denominations and an ASE, all struck at the West Point Mint, bearing the facility’s “W” mintmark. Proof ASEs were struck at the Philadelphia Mint at that time, and the mintage at West Point was limited to the coins included in the 10th anniversary sets, 30,125 in total. This small mintage makes the 1995-W Proof the series’ first and major key date.
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In 2006, a reverse proof issue was introduced to mark the silver eagle’s 20th anniversary, as were bullion strike examples struck on burnished planchets. The year 2016 saw edge lettering applied to bullion strike and proof issues acknowledging the series’ 30th anniversary. Some “artificial rarities,” ASE issues with limited mintages, command prices substantially higher than typical values for common issues. The 2019-W Enhanced Reverse Proof, issued with numbered certificates of authenticity signed by then-Mint Director David J. Ryder, were selling for five-figure prices in the wake of their issuance. Prices have since settled, but the issue is a notable rarity in the series.
In 2020, a privy mark commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War was added to the American Eagle bullion coins and had a limited mintage of 75,000.
In 2021, a new design debuted on the coins. Emily Damstra’s Eagle Coming In For A Landing motif replaced Mercanti’s Heraldic Eagle design. Damstra’s design was the preference of the Commission of Fine Arts for the AGE, rather than the ASE, per Gilkes’ reporting in Coin World. Mint Medallic Artist Michael Gaudioso sculpted Damstra’s design shortly before his retirement.
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The changeover offered a collecting opportunity as Stack’s Bowers Galleries, in partnership with the U.S. Mint, conducted the American Eagle At Dusk and At Dawn Sale 35th Anniversary Auction on September 1, 2022. The final 500 examples of the Type I ASEs and AGEs struck and the first 500 of the first 500 of the Type II designs were on offer; then-Mint Director David J. Ryder operated the press that struck all 1,000 coins.
The Mint also offered sets with both ASE designs in various finishes, marking the changeover. The above-mentioned issues are by no means a comprehensive list of the various commemorative issues and sets, including ASEs.