1874-S $5 Liberty Head Half Eagle PCGS XF45 (CAC) - Very Rare in All Grades!

Due to its being used as an instrument of commerce, combined with its small mintage of 16,000, this issue is very rare in all grades. In fact, the highest graded piece by PCGS is AU58, of which there is a single example. PCGS has graded 9 in XF45 with 38 finer. In CAC, there are 3 in XF45 with 8 finer. The 'S' mintmark on this issue is always very weak and on well worn examples it is almost invisible.

Pierre-Narcisse Guérin painted Pythagoras or The Earth is Round about 1800.

Christian Gobrecht crafted the design upon the half eagle, as well as the motifs upon the eagle and quarter eagle. The bust of Liberty was originally crafted by Gobrecht for the $10 eagle coin in 1838. All three coins carried the same design: a left facing Liberty with a coronet in her hair. That obverse design remained on the gold coinage until 1908. The reverse was imitative of the John Reich original design of 1807, the difference being that the eagle's wings now spread from one edge of the coin to the other. Commenting upon the inspiration for Gobrecht's Liberty, numismatic art scholar Cornelius Vermeule writes, "The motivation for this Roman head of Liberty stems from vast, varied neoclassicism of the Napoleonic era. Typical of the source is a small painting ... by Jacques-Louis David's contemporary Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, Pythagoras or The Earth is Round, painted about 1800. ... [On the painting it] is the diademed or coroneted, white-robed, seated female that should attract our attention, for she is related to the heads of Liberty on our 19th century gold ... coinage."