![United States, Indian Head $5, 1915 Philadelphia [WC3G3-3] - Image 2](https://colonialcoins.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/WC3g3-3-1.jpg)
Description
United States of America, Gold ‘Indian Head’ Five Dollars (8.36g, 20.5mm), 1915, Philadelphia mint. Obverse: Indian head facing to the left, wearing war bonnet, “LIBERTY” above, date and engraver’s initials “B.L.P.” (Bela Lyon Pratt) below, twelve five-pointed states surround. Reverse: Bald eagle left, perched on bundle of arrows and olive branch, mottos “E PLURIBUS UNUM” and “IN GOD WE TRUST” to field left and right, country surrounds above, denomination surrounds below. KM-129. Some light contact marks, else a nice example, attractive in hand, near Mint State, reverse Extremely Fine or better.
“In 1908 the Half eagle motif was changed to feature the portrait of an American Indian, said to have been the first real native American ever shown on a coin. Earlier representations, including the Indian cent, were stylistic and did not represent actual people. Indeed, the Indian cent (minted 1859-1909) represented a woman in a war bonnet, a situation inconsistent with ethnology. Boston sculptor Bela Lyon Pratt, a student of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, was given the task of the redesign, to complete the work of Saint-Gaudens, who had died of cancer the year before.
The same Indian design was used for the quarter eagle as well. The new Indian quarter eagle and half eagle of 1908 represented an innovation in American coinage. The designs were incuse or inset in the surface, with the field of the coin, normally the lowest part, being in the present instance the highest part. Incuse coins had been made in ancient times, but never before in circulating United States issues. Curiously and inconsistently, Indian quarter eagles and half eagles struck at Denver and San Francisco (half eagles, but not quarter eagles, were struck at New Orleans as well), with mintmarks, bore the mintmark raised on the coin – extending above the field. Apparently it was too much trouble to have the mintmark incuse. This is probably just as well, for one can imagine a proliferation of phony mintmarks made for collectors, by punching D and S letters into the fields of Philadelphia Mint coins!
The two rarities in the Indian series are the 1909-O and 1929, with the latter being particularly elusive. Although 662,000 1929 half eagles were struck, fewer than 200 are believed to exist today. Most of the pieces were stored by the Treasury Department after mintage, were never released into circulation, and when gold coins were discontinued in 1933 they went to the melting pot. Among Indian Head half eagles, with the exception of 1909-D, and to a lesser extent 1908, most varieties are quite rare in Uncirculated grade, and are very rare in MS-64 or better preservation.” (PCGS Coin Facts)
