Congress authorized the American Palladium Eagle in 2010, but the U.S. Mint didn't actually strike the first coin until 2017 — a seven-year gap driven by uncertainty around sourcing enough palladium and gauging real demand for the metal in coin form. When it finally launched, the debut release was capped at just 15,000 coins, a genuinely small mintage compared to any other American Eagle denomination's first year. Rather than commission a new design, the Mint reused Adolph Weinman's 1907 Winged Liberty figure from the American Institute of Architects' gold medal — the same figure numismatists recognize from the Mercury dime — giving the newest Eagle metal one of the oldest designs in the whole program.
Palladium is the least familiar of the four Eagle metals to most new buyers, and its market behaves differently from gold, silver, or even platinum — it's heavily tied to automotive catalytic converter demand and has shown more dramatic price swings than the other three metals in recent years. A new buyer should treat this as a genuine diversification move into a different, more volatile market, not simply "the fourth Eagle to collect," and should expect a less liquid resale market than gold or silver given how comparatively new and low-volume this coin is.
The dates serious Palladium Eagle collectors specifically chase — the rest of the run trades close to melt value.
First year of issue — Congress authorized the coin back in 2010, but the Mint didn't strike the first one until 2017 due to uncertainty sourcing palladium, and the debut release was capped at just 15,000 coins. It reuses Adolph Weinman's 1907 Winged Liberty design from the American Institute of Architects' gold medal, the same figure familiar from the Mercury dime.
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Start tracking freeCongress authorized it in 2010, but the U.S. Mint waited until 2017 to strike the first coin, citing uncertainty sourcing enough palladium and unclear demand for a palladium bullion coin at the time.
No — it reuses Adolph Weinman's 1907 Winged Liberty design from the American Institute of Architects' gold medal, the same figure familiar from the Mercury dime, rather than a design created specifically for this coin.
More volatile and more tied to automotive catalytic converter demand — its price history looks meaningfully different from gold, silver, or even platinum, which new buyers should understand before treating it as a simple diversification purchase.