In this economy, everyone likes a good value. If you don’t have the discretionary funds for coins now that you had a year ago, every last dollar counts. This brings us to the question at hand. Are there good values in the rare gold market in the $5,000 and under price range? And if so, what are they? This article is focused on twelve of the better values that come to mind in the gold dollar through half eagle denominations.

If you are like most people, the last few months have been tough on your pocketbook let alone your psyche. We are, at least for the immediate future, in tough economic times. For some people, there are difficult decisions that have to be made: which bills get taken care of, can the mortgage be paid, do we eat dinner or fill the tank with gas. Fortunately most coin collectors are faced with decisions that are much less dramatic.

The response to the article that I wrote last month on the ten rarest Liberty Head eagles was so overwhelmingly positive that I’ve decided to extend this format to other denominations of Liberty Head gold. This month’s topic: quarter eagles. The Liberty Head quarter eagle series was produced from 1840 through 1907. Unlike the larger denomination issues of this type, quarter eagles were never produced at the Carson City or Denver mints.

This article is about the ten rarest Liberty Head eagles. Notice that I didn’t say “the ten most popular” or “the ten most expensive.” Readers may be surprised that this top ten list does not include any Carson City issues (although I was tempted to include the 1870-CC) and just one from New Orleans.

In the five years since I wrote the second edition of my book on Dahlonega gold coinage, a number of important coins have been sold and some significant changes are going to be have to be made when I release my third edition (which, if I had to guess, will be out in another year or so). I think it would be interesting to look at the ten rarest Dahlonega gold coins and see what important things have changed about them since 2003.

There are many ways to collect Charlotte gold. Some people have only a mild interest in these coins and may buy just one or two pieces. Other people are more serious and they have a large number of Charlotte issues in their collection. A small number of Charlotte collectors are obsessives who focus exclusively on these pieces and do not collect anything else. I would like to make some suggestions on how to collect Charlotte gold.