The American Legion 100th Anniversary $5 Gold Coin

The American Legion was not born in America. It was born in Paris.

In March 1919, with the guns of the First World War only months silent, members of the American Expeditionary Forces — the U.S. troops who had fought in France — gathered in the French capital to figure out what came next. Millions of men were about to go home. They wanted an organization that would speak for veterans, care for the wounded, and keep faith with the dead. That meeting became The American Legion, chartered by Congress later the same year.

A hundred years on, in 2019, the U.S. Mint marked the centennial with a three-coin program: a clad half dollar, a silver dollar, and this — a small gold coin worth five dollars at face value but built almost entirely of gold. It is a commemorative: a coin Congress authorizes for a specific occasion, sold to collectors at a premium rather than spent at a store. Buy one and a fixed surcharge goes to the cause it honors — here, to the Legion itself.

So this coin does two things at once. It tells the story of where the Legion began, and it quietly raised money for the work the Legion still does.

The obverse — the heads side — sends you straight back to that founding moment in France. At its center stands the Eiffel Tower, with a "V" for victory rising over it, framed by the angular geometric border lifted from the Legion's own emblem. It is an unusual choice for an American coin: a foreign monument as the hero image. But it is honest. The Legion really did begin in the shadow of that tower, in the country where its founders had fought. The obverse was designed by Chris Costello and sculpted by Phebe Hemphill of the Mint's engraving staff.

The reverse — the tails side — turns homeward. A bald eagle climbs through the field, the American Legion emblem set above it. Where the obverse remembers the war, the reverse points to the century of peacetime service that followed. It was designed by Paul C. Balan and sculpted by Joseph Menna, who would later become the Mint's Chief Engraver.

Two dates anchor the whole coin: 1919 and 2019. A hundred years, bridged by a single piece of gold.

Here is what makes this coin interesting to collectors: almost nobody bought it.

Congress allowed the Mint to strike up to 50,000 of these gold coins. By the end of 2019, sales told a different story — about 10,916 proof coins and 2,929 uncirculated coins, fewer than 14,000 in all. A proof is a special collector strike, made with polished dies and planchets for a mirror finish; the uncirculated version has a softer, satin look. Both came nowhere near the cap.

That low take-up is the headline for collectors. Modern commemorative gold often sells modestly, but the American Legion uncirculated coin in particular has one of the smaller sale totals among recent issues — under three thousand pieces. Scarcity at the time of sale doesn't guarantee a high price later, and much of any value sits in the gold itself (roughly a quarter ounce). But for collectors who chase low original-distribution numbers rather than headline rarities, this is exactly the kind of coin that gets noticed.

When you see one in a graded holder, the grade and finish (proof versus uncirculated) are what to read first — they separate the two issues, and the uncirculated is the harder of the two to find.