The 1856 $20 double eagle is a surprisingly elusive date for a Philadelphia mint coin, considering its mintage of 329,878 coins. Examples are well-struck overall with natural coloration ranging from green-gold to lighter orange-gold. Unfortunately, conservation has subdued the luster and stripped the originality of many pieces in recent years, and original examples are becoming increasingly difficult to encounter. Examples grading Very Fine to Extremely Fine can be located with persistence, though AU pieces are considerably scarce with only about a hundred pieces known. Only a few examples were recovered from the shipwrecks of the SS Central America and the SS Republic and as such, this issue remains rare in Mint State. An estimated two dozen Uncirculated examples are known, the finest of which grade MS-63.

We wrote the following in our August 2022 Auction Catalog, saying: "The mintage for the 1856 is 329,878 circulation strikes, down nearly 40,000 pieces from the previous year's figure. The 1856 is considered by many to be a common date, no doubt because of the size of the mintages that occurred in Philadelphia at the beginning of the series. With regard to higher grades nothing could be further from the truth. This date has long been respected by specialists in the denomination as one of the more challenging Philadelphia Mint issues of the 1850s, especially in attractive Uncirculated condition, as here. Indeed, Q. David Bowers allowed for just 12 to 20 Mint State survivors when he penned his Guide Book of Double Eagle Gold Coins in 2004 for Whitman. Today's estimate is not much greater and probably on the order of 30 to 40 different coins."

The example to the left was sold by Stack's Bowers Galleries in August 2014 as part of the Gilded Age Collection, where it realized $41,125.