1836 $2.50 Script 8 MS62 Certification #21258369, PCGS #7694

The Classic head gold coins were President Andrew Jackson's answer to the unstable monetary conditions of his time. He believed that yeoman farmers were better off if they could use small denomination gold coins and avoid paper money. Given the state of banking industry in Jackson's day, that was sound advice. In 1834 Andrew Jackson's right hand man in the Sentate, Thomas Hart Benton, introduced legislation that raised the ratio between silver and gold from 15 to 1 to 16 to 1. This coin and it's $5 counterpart were the result of this legislation. For the first time gold coins saw a fair amount of use in the U.S. economy. As a result of this, these coins are quite scarce in strictly Mint State condition. The coin show above has ultra smooth surfaces with the usual weak center on the obverse due to a die crack that runs from the 6th star, through the center and ends behind the curls in back of Ms. Liberty's neck.

David Akers (1975/88)

This date has a greater mintage than all of the other dates of this type combined, and it is certainly one of the most common, if not the most common, dates of this type. As is the case with the 1835, however, choice specimens are difficult to obtain and most of them are softly struck in the center. There are three distinct types of head of Liberty on the 1836 dated quarter eagles. The first is the large head of 1834. The second type has the head of 1835, which is taller and somewhat thinner than either of the heads of 1834 and has a small curl of hair near the 6th star, and four large curls. The third type of head is called the head of 1837, which is similar to the head of 1835 but does not have the small curl near the 6th star, just the four large ones on top of the head.