Did The 1933 Gold Eagle Circulate?

Numismatic News - The 1933 Indian Head gold eagle is probably the best coin of the United States, which could be called a poor man's 1933 gold coin. Considering the 1933 gold eagle currently lists for $600,000 in MS-65 it is hard to imagine the word "poor" in any sentence involving the 1933 but since the only other gold coin of 1933 (the famous Saint-Gaudens double eagle of 1933) which once sold for $7.6 million dollars, the concept of the 1933 gold eagle being the poor man's 1933 is actually appropriate.



The story of the 1933 gold eagle could be said to go back at least to the stock market crash of 1929. That famous black day on Wall Street was the start of a lot of bad days for most American as the months and years that followed would see the nation slip deeper and deeper into the Great Depression.

People were frightened and with good reason. At its worst, officially one-quarter of the nation's workers had no job while half of the nation's home owners were behind in their payments. By any and every standard it was an economic disaster. As there were so-called "banking holidays," which at least gave the banks a chance to avoid having to close because there were no funds, the concern of the public grew.

It might be too much to say there was a panic but there definitely were significant withdrawals of gold from the Treasury in the early 1930s. In all probability the 312,500 mintage of the 1933 Indian Head gold eagle was in response to those withdrawals.

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