One Dollar Gold Indian Head Coin

Coin	Weight (g)	Composition	Gold Melt Value	Full Melt Value
Indian Head TIII (1856-1889)	1.355	Gold 90%, Copper 10%
Indian Head TII (1854-1856)	1.355	Gold 90%, Copper 10%

The One Dollar Gold Indian Head Coin has two types.  The Liberty Head one dollar gold coin is usually referred to as Type I, making the “Small Indian Head” Type II, and “Large Indian Head” Type III.  All three types were designed by James Barton Longacre.  The Small Indian Head was struck from 1854 through 1856.  The Small Indian Head was too high and was not producing a full clear and strong strike.  The coin was redesigned and the Large Indian Head was introduced during 1856 and continued being struck through 1889.

The One Dollar Gold Indian Head Coin was introduced because there were numerous complaints about the very small size of the one dollar gold Liberty head coin.  The Liberty head type was only 13 millimeters in diameter and is the smallest coin ever struck by the United States mint.  The Indian head types are 15 millimeters in diameter, have the same weight of 16.72 grams and the same composition of 90% gold and 10% copper, with a reeded edge.

The obverse has the Indian head at the center Type II being small and Type III being large.  Then along the rim, encircling the Indian head is “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”.  The reverse has A LARGE “1” in the center raised above the middle of the coin were “DOLLAR” is written, and just underneath is the date.  A wreath encircles this and if there is a mint mark it is directly under the bow of the wreath at the rim.

The Philadelphia Mint has no mint mark.  The coins having the mint mark “C” are from the mint at Charlotte, NC, “D” for Dahlonega, GA, New Orleans, LA used “O” and San Francisco’s is “S”.  In 1861 the South had raised arms to secede from the Union and its Confederate solders seized the mints in North Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana.  An unknown number of the One Dollar Gold Indian Head Coins had been minted at the Dahlonega, GA mint branch some by the United States of America and some by the confederates.  The Confederates did mint other denominations using the United States dies.

From 1862 on through 1889 only the Philadelphian Mint struck the one dollar gold coins except in 1870 when the San Francisco mint struck three thousand pieces.  In 1856 an “Upright 5” and “Slanted 5” varieties struck and in 1873 the “Opened” and “Closed” wreath variations appeared again.

Alexander Hamilton first proposed the minting of a gold one dollar coin when he was Treasury Secretary.  The recommendation for the one dollar gold coin was left out by the United States Constitutional Congress in 1792 when the United States passed its Mint Act.  It was not until the Coinage Act of 1849 that the US mint was authorized to a gold one dollar coin.  Even with the new supplies of gold from the gold rushes in the East and West of the United States, many people speculate that it was Christopher Bechtler’s success with turning a profit as an assayer and private mint for the gold coming out of the mines in North Carolina.

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