The 1868 is the rarest Philadelphia double eagle struck at the Philadelphia mint. It is seen most often in the EF40 to AU50 grades and properly graded AU53 to AU55 coins are very seldom offered for sale. In Uncirculated, the 1868is a very coin and it is clearly among the hardest non-Carson City double eagles of this design to locate.

This is a very pleasing mid-range AU example with enough “meat” to grade AU55 but probably just a few too many marks, in PCGS’ opinion, to encapsulateas such. It is among the few 1868 double eagles that I have seen which has not been cleaned or dipped and both sides display attractive even medium to deep orange-gold color. This is traditionally a very “baggy” date and while this piece does have some noticeable marks, it isn’t as “chewed up” as many others which I have owned. A few marks can be seen in the left obverse field and there is a scrape above TAT in STATES.

The last PCGS AU53 to sell at auction was Bowers and Merena 1/08: 593 which brought an extremely strong $7,188. Since then, there have been just four AU53′s sold at auction, all in NGC holders.

If you follow this series, you know how tough this issue is in nice AU and it could be some time before a comparable–or slightly better–piece is available to serious Type Two collectors.