There are two varieties of the 1854 double eagle — one described as a medium, or a small date, and the other as a large date. The size difference of the dates is noticeable, but most catalog listings have not mentioned date sizes as a factor in collectability. You may be content to find just one 1854 $20 double eagle minted in Philadelphia for your collection, regardless of date size. The Small Date variety represents the vast majority of the 1854 mintage, and circulated examples are plentiful up to About Uncirculated condition, becoming scarce in Choice AU grades. Availability drops off considerably in Mint State, with perhaps just two to three dozen coins available to collectors today.

We wrote the following in our April 2022 Auction Catalog, saying: "Circulation strike double eagle production at the Philadelphia Mint amounted to 757,899 coins in 1854, a total that was split between Small Date and Large Date varieties. The latter is by far the rarer date style of the issue, and it likely amounts to no more than 10% of the coins extant. According to Q. David Bowers (2004) only three to five Mint State examples are known, and he describes the 1854 Large Date as "by [far] the rarest Philadelphia Mint double eagle minted up to this point in time." While the number of Uncirculated coins has crept up slightly over the last couple of decades, the variety remains a formidable condition rarity at this level."

The example to the left was sold by Stack's Bowers Galleries in August 2014 as part of the Guilded Age Collection, where it realized $55,812.