Only 11,100 eagles were made at the New Orleans mint in 1860. The 1860-O is a numismatically significant coin as it is the final No Motto New Orleans eagle. It is very scarce in the higher AU grades, especially with natural color. In Uncirculated, the 1860-O is extremely rare with just four to six known.

This example is very lightly worn with some minor friction observed on the cheekbone of Liberty. It has even rich natural russet color on the obverse and the reverse and the surfaces are very clean. This date is almost always seen with bright, processed surfaces and only a few exist with natural color, especially in this grade range. As is typical for the issue, the stars have flatness on their radial lines; this is seen even on high grade 1860-O eagles.

There have been no PCGS AU58 examples of the 1860-O eagle offered at auction since October 1995 (!). The last NGC AU58 was Heritage 7/11: 4856, which brought $9,488. A sophisticated wholesaler just offered me a different NGC 58 example of $9,500 at the recent CSNS show.

With all of the Uncirculated 1860-O eagles off the market in tightly-held collections, this is likely to be the finest piece available to collectors in the foreseeable future.

ON HOLD