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2 1/2 Dollars 'Classic Head, No Motto On Reverse - Quarter Eagle'
| Issuer | United States Mint |
|---|---|
| Year | 1834-1839 |
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| Currency | Dollar (1785-date) |
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| Obverse description | Left-facing effigy of Liberty rendered in the Classic Head style, her hair arranged in tight curls and bound by a plain fillet inscribed LIBERTY. Thirteen six-pointed stars are disposed around the periphery, seven to the left and six to the right of the portrait. The date appears in the lower exergual area beneath the truncation of the neck. The design, engraved by William Kneass, reflects the neoclassical aesthetic characteristic of early nineteenth-century American coinage. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse script | Latin |
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| Additional information |
The Classic Head quarter eagle exists because of a monetary crisis rooted in bad arithmetic. When Hamilton fixed the mint ratio of silver to gold at 15:1 in 1792, the market ratio was already drifting higher. By the 1820s, gold coins were being systematically exported and melted for bullion profit. The Act of June 28, 1834 corrected this by reducing the gold content of all U.S. gold coinage — making the old motto "WITH MOTTO" politically awkward, since the reduced coins were no longer equivalent to their predecessors.
The motto was dropped not for aesthetic reasons but to visually distinguish the new, lighter coins from pre-1834 issues still in circulation.