The 1986 Statue of Liberty $5 Gold Coin

By the early 1980s the Statue of Liberty was falling apart. A century of salt air had eaten through her iron skeleton; her torch leaked, and rust was spreading behind the copper skin. Restoring her — and the crumbling immigration halls on nearby Ellis Island — would cost a fortune. The government's answer was a coin.

In 1985 Congress passed the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Commemorative Coin Act (Public Law 99-61). It authorized three coins for Liberty's 1986 centennial: a copper-nickel half dollar, a silver dollar, and a $5 gold piece. Each carried a surcharge — a built-in premium added to the price — and every cent of it went to the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation, the private group, chaired by Chrysler boss Lee Iacocca, that was running the restoration.

The $5 gold coin carried the heaviest surcharge of the three: $35 per coin. It was also a milestone in its own right. The Mint had not struck a gold coin for circulation or collectors since 1929, when the Great Depression and the gold recall of 1933 ended the old gold standard. This little half eagle broke a 57-year silence.

The coin's obverse — the heads side — is unusual. Instead of showing the whole statue, it looks almost straight up at her face and crown, as a visitor standing at her feet would see her. The view is intimate and slightly monumental at once. The work came from Elizabeth Jones, then the Mint's Chief Engraver and one of the most accomplished medalic sculptors of her generation.

The reverse — the tails side — shows a bald eagle, designed by Jones together with Mint sculptor Philip Fowler. It carries the legends every U.S. coin must bear: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, E PLURIBUS UNUM, IN GOD WE TRUST, and the denomination, FIVE DOLLARS.

Every one of these half eagles was struck at the West Point facility in New York and carries its mint mark — the small letter stamped on a coin to show where it was made — the "W." It was the first time a half eagle had been made at West Point, a fitting touch for a coin honoring a New York harbor landmark.

This is one of the easier modern gold commemoratives to find, and that is the point: it sold out. Congress capped the mintage at 500,000, and the Mint struck 499,261 — so close to the ceiling that collectors treat it as a complete sellout. Of those, the proofs far outnumber the uncirculated coins (404,013 to 95,248), which makes the uncirculated version the scarcer of the two.

Because the surface of a gold coin shows every flaw, grade matters here more than rarity. Both the uncirculated and proof versions were judged flawless and graded a perfect 70 within months of release, and high-grade examples — a pristine proof (a specially polished collector strike) in deep cameo, or a top-graded uncirculated coin — carry a real premium over the gold value alone. For most of the surviving population, though, the coin trades close to its melt value of about a quarter ounce of gold.

A note for value: the surcharge that made this coin special on day one is gone from the secondary market. You paid the Mint $35 extra to help rebuild Liberty; a buyer today pays for the gold and the grade.