Indian Head Quarter Eagles
Take a look at a handful of change. No matter whether it is the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the penny (and take a close look at the center of that Memorial, by the way), or face of Washington on the quarter, any image on the coin is in "relief" - raised up from the flat background.
All official United States coins were minted in such a way except two, the Indian Head quarter eagle and the Indian Head half eagle. On these coins, the design and test are not raised up but rather "incused" - incised into the metal of the coin. (They also have no raised outer rims - which protect coins from wear.)
Like the Saint-Gaudens double eagle, it was President Theodore Roosevelt who championed the design of the Indian Head coins, which made their debut in 1908.
The story goes that Boston physician and art lover William Sturgis Bigelow, a friend of Roosevelt's was so impressed by the Egyptian reliefs in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts that he suggested to the President that coins be made in that fashion. Roosevelt liked the idea.
Sculptor Bela Lyon Pratt was commissioned to create the design, which was used for both the quarter eagle and half eagle. (This was in contrast to the eagle and double eagle, in which sculptor Saint-Gaudens created two different designs.).
On the front of the coin is the portrait of an Indian in a feathered headdress – one whose features actually looks like those of a Native American, unusual up until that time. The reverse features an eagle "in repose, perched upon fasces and an olive branch, the intertwined symbols of preparedness and peace."
As with the first design of the Saint-Gaudens double eagle, banks complained about the physical design of the coin. Without the outer rim, the coins would not stack properly. In addition, many pundits complained about the incused design - afraid that the grooves would be clogged with dirt and germs. However, the coins were not modified, and were issued from 1908 through 1915. Production stopped until 1925, and ended for good in 1929.
This series of quarter eagles is one of the smallest ever issued by the U.S. Mint – and it is relatively easy to collect a complete set. (There are only 15 different date-and-mint combinations (12 issues from the Philadelphia Mint and three from Denver).) Only the 1911-D, is notably scarce; at 55,680 minted, the rest of the years saw at least 240,000 coins minted.
Like the quarter eagle, the half eagle ceased production, but in 1916 rather than 1915. The rarity in the quarter eagle is the 1911-O, for the half eagle it is the 1929 (minted at Philadelphia.) Other scarce coins in this series include the 1909-O, 1911-D and 1908-S. The Indian head half eagle was minted, for a time, at all four mints then in existence.
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