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The US Mint produces some of the most popular gold coins in the world. Investors flock to buy the bullion coins backed by the full faith and credit of the American government every year.
In fact, any official gold coin produced by the US Mint is guaranteed to be of tremendous value. As Provident Metals is an authorized distributor and retailer for US Mint gold coins, it seems appropriate to walk through the different gold coin offerings that the mint has available.
So, this page is your guide to the various gold coins, both old and new, that are now collectors’ items for anyone wanting to buy American.
American Gold Eagle
The American Gold Eagle was the first bullion coin ever produced by the United States of America. The coin’s first mintage occurred in 1986 to rebuke and compete with the South African Krugerrand.
The Gold Eagles themselves are minted with 91.67% gold, 5% copper, and 3.33% silver. The American Gold Eagle is standard-made as a 1 oz coin, but there are also three fractional weights available. The US Mint produces ½ oz, ¼ oz, and 1/10 oz varieties – all with the same design and gold purity.
The gold Eagle’s design is, in part, a tribute to an earlier American coin. Its obverse is an updated version of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ beloved Liberty design – last seen on the $20 Double Eagle produced in the early 20th century. Its reverse features an image of an eagle in one of two stylings – either a family of bald eagles or a bust of a single bald eagle.
Each gold Eagle bears a face value of $50. However, please don’t use this coin at its published value.
American Gold Buffalo
In the ensuing 20 years, many other sovereign mints produced their own bullion coins to shake the Krugerrand’s grip loose from the world gold market. Many of these coins are minted with 99.99% fine gold, and the US Mint decided that a high purity bullion coin was in order.
So, in 2006, it unveiled the Gold Buffalo – a beautiful coin boasting the same .9999 purity. To date, no other American gold coin has featured such a high gold content.
Like the Eagle, the Buffalo’s design is an homage to a classic American coin. In this case, the Buffalo is a riff on James Earle Fraser’s Indian Head or Buffalo nickel, which was the five-cent piece of the day for several decades.
Thus, the obverse of the coin features a Native American man in sharp detail, and the reverse depicts the coin’s namesake creature. Unlike the Eagle, however, the gold Buffalo does not usually appear in fractional denominations.
The only year to feature weights below 1 oz is 2008. Needless to say, fractional gold Buffalos are quite rare. They have an equivalent face value, $50, as their predecessors, the Eagles.
Pre-1933 Gold Coins
The nature of gold ownership in the United States changed forever in 1933. In that year, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102, which made gold bullion ownership illegal and declared the price for an ounce of gold to be $35/oz.
Americans, weary after four years of the Great Depression, traded their gold coins for that price en masse. Thus, Roosevelt gained control of the vast majority of the gold supply in the country and used that leverage to weaken its tether on the value of a dollar. FDR could then inflate the money supply and pay for his New Deal.
The surrendered gold coins were – along with the bullion – largely melted into gold bars. These bars formed the backbone for the first deposit of gold into the newly-opened bullion depository at Fort Knox.
As a result, surviving gold coins from prior to 1933 are now prized collectors’ items. Prominent examples of these coins include:
Different versions of all of these coins are available within Provident Metals’ selection of pre-33 gold coins. However, bear in mind that any gold coins made prior to roughly 1848 (the year of the California Gold Rush) are historically significant items, and may bear values far in excess of “newer” gold coins.
The Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005 authorized the creation of commemorative coins honoring the men who’ve occupied the highest office in the land. The same legislation also called for the creation of $10 gold coins that honor the First Ladies that have called the White House home.
Each First Spouse gold coin contains a half-ounce of gold. The coins are minted at the same high purity found in gold Buffalos – First Spouse gold coins are 99.99% fine gold.
One interesting quirk of these coins is that they are only authorized for the First Ladies of presidents who have been the subject of their own $1 coins. Those coins, in turn, are not made to honor the presidents until those presidents have passed away.
Thus, until recently, there were gold coins honoring all of the presidents up to President George H.W. Bush – with one exception. As President Carter only passed away in late 2024, his wife Rosalynn never received a commemorative gold coin during her lifetime.
Nevertheless, it’s reasonable to assume that she and all other First Ladies will receive their own coins. Provident has a large selection of them available, including some that have their labels signed by David Hall, co-founder of the Professional Coin Grading Service, or PGCS.
Gold coins created by the US Mint in modern times are, almost by definition, commemorative. Its two bullion coins – the Eagle and the Buffalo – both honor historical and acclaimed designs featured on past coinage.
The Mint also releases versions of other previous currency pieces as commemoratives. Notably, it has cast new editions of the Mercury dime and the Liberty quarter in recent years, and other previous currency designs may receive similar treatment in the future.
US Mint gold coins are also created to commemorate historical events in American history. Occurrences like the end of World War II, the Apollo 11 moon landing, and the landing of the Mayflower have each received their own gold coins, and there’s no limit to what events may make the cut next for the Mint.
Some of these commemoratives are released in a condition known as “high relief.” The reliefs of a coin are the raised parts of it, where the dies pressed down on the fields, or other parts of the coin, to create the design.
With high relief coins, the reliefs are especially tall and create much sharper design images. Stamping a high relief coin requires additional pressure from the mint’s press and specially-designed dies that can withstand the extra forces.
Investing and/or collecting the US Mint’s gold coins can be a rewarding and profitable experience. Gold is quite likely to increase in value over time, and simply preserving your purchases without damage can allow you to enjoy those gains.
Bear in mind, however, that the premiums, or costs over the spot price, are typically higher for gold coins than gold bars or rounds. In particular, specialized designs found on commemorative coins command much higher prices from investors who want to buy.
On the other hand, the higher premiums portend the increased liquidity that you will enjoy when buying or selling gold coins. Simply put, it’s easier to find buyers and sellers to make transactions happen at the time you decide to make a move.
Finally, there is value in collecting entire sets of gold coins beyond the value of each individual coin. If you can compile, say, the entire set of First Spouse Gold Coins, it is likely going to draw much more interest and increase the price you can charge if you decide to sell.
The history of US gold coins and, for that matter, of the US Mint itself begins in 1792. The Coinage Act of 1792 established both the issuing body (US Mint) and the format of the currency that the new republic would use.
Thus, the first gold coins that the US Mint issued were minted in 1795, a year after the Mint began producing the other portions of the new dollar. The Philadelphia location – the only one at the time – issued both $10 eagle and $5 half eagle coins to the public.
However, another facet of the Coinage Act of 1792 led to a massive undervaluation of these coins. The law set the ratio of the value of silver to gold at 15:1, which made it more profitable to export the coins overseas, where they were melted into bullion.
Laws passed in the successive decades aimed to put more of these coins into circulation. The ratio was adjusted dramatically, and the combination of new Mint locations and new coining technologies made them far more palatable to the American public.
US Mint gold coins remain some of the finest precious metals and numismatic investments that a person can make. The country’s status as the world leader instills a greater degree of trust for both buyers and sellers about the persistent value of these instruments.
As we’ve mentioned above, we have all kinds of different US gold coins available for purchase here at Provident Metals. We also have trained counselors standing by to assist you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can call us, email us, or chat with us via the live chat button in the bottom right portion of your screen.
In case you didn’t know, 98% of Provident customers report a 4-star or 5-star experience when they do business with us. If you need to see why, consult the hundreds of thousands of customer reviews below. Otherwise, we’d love the opportunity to show you why Provident Metals is the preferred choice for so many investors and collectors.
