The Type-2 reverse, in six long-form sections.

The American Silver Eagle program ran on one reverse design — the Heraldic Eagle, with shield, olive branch, arrows, and the scroll reading “E PLURIBUS UNUM” — from 1986 through the first half of 2021. The American Gold Eagle program ran on the same Augustus Saint-Gaudens family for the same decades, with the design axis changed only in the special-handling and label-generation generations crossing cert records.

Mid-2021 the Mint retired the Heraldic reverse on the Silver Eagle and replaced it with a Landing Eagle design — eagle mid-descent, wings raised, no heraldic elements in the field. The calendar year 2021 is the only year both reverses were struck, and the first-year overlap is what collectors shorthand Type-2. On the gold side the parallel mid-program reverse migrations (the Anniversary redesign on the obverse, the Type-2 reverse-design attribute tracking across the cert records) market as comparable scarcity signals — though strictly the Silver Eagle Type-2 reverse is its own designation.

The same per-grade ceiling documented in MS70 vs PR70 applies — but the premium rides the reverse-design axis, not the finish axis. We unpack the redesign mechanics below, then the per-grade / per-finish split, then the label axis, then how the per-cert premium lands in the online tray.

The single fastest way to attribute a Type-2 is to look at the reverse face under a 10× loupe and check for the absence of heraldic elements. The Type-1 reverse shows a static eagle with shield, olive branch, arrows, and a scroll reading “E PLURIBUS UNUM”; the Type-2 reverse shows an eagle mid-descent with wings raised, no shield, no scroll, no arrows, and no olive branch. If any of those heraldic elements are present, the piece is a Type-1; if none are, it’s a Type-2.

On the obverse, the Type-2 transition also brought a redesigned Liberty — the steps and foldreading Weinman’s original Walking Liberty half-dollar in motion, with the steps now visible at the base of the design. The obverse redesign is a separate axis from the reverse designation (Type-1 vs Type-2), and the holder market tracks the two axes as distinct — the obverse shift is a generator’s modification, the reverse shift is the Type-2 designation.

On the gold side, the visual cue is the eagle’s posture and the absence of heraldic adjuncts on the reverse (no shield, no scroll). Gold Eagles do not run a parallel Landing Eagle design, but the holder market treats the mid-program reverse migrations and the Anniversary obverse redesign as comparable scarcity signals — the parallel logic reverse redesign + first-year overlap maps cleanly across both metals.

Both grading services split the label line into finish (the per-grade axis — see Proof vs burnished) and design (the reverse-designation axis). The finish axis prints as the grade itself: PF70 or PR70 for a proof strike, and MS70 for a bullion or burnished strike. The design axis prints as a separate line — a small Type 2 designation on the Type-2 reverse, often with a small eagle icon, and absent on the Type-1 reverse.

The cert-lookup cross-reference is the same URL convention used everywhere else on the holder: NGC resolves certs at ngccoin.com/certlookup/<cert> and PCGS at pcgs.com/cert/<cert>. Both resolve the reverse-design attribute once the cert is opened — the Type 2 flag is printed into the cert record, not just the holder label, so attribution lives in the cert page and survives a label-generation refresh.

Label-generation freshness matters. The Type-2 first-year run has crossing label generations — early holders, repunch holders, and special-run labels (NGC America-250 cross-overs, signed-label runs from either service, and the early San Francisco strike-and-pack runs) that collectors track alongside the reverse design. The per-coin premium is the same, but the per-cert premium can shift upward when a piece carries the early-generation label — see How to read a holder for the field-by-field breakdown of which label line is which.

American Eagles grade on a 70-point Sheldon scale, and 70 is the floor above which a piece carries a label-level per-grade premium. A Type-2 reverse graded MS70 or PR70 binds to the per-grade ceiling premium; the same piece on a 69 holder trades at a meaningful discount. The 70 boundary is therefore the per-coin threshold at which the premium shifts into the scarcity-premium band — and on the Type-2 axis, the premium above the floor is the design-axis scarcity premium explained in section 05 below.

The grade axis and the reverse-design axis are independent: a Type-1 reverse graded MS70 trades at a different per-coin premium than a Type-2 reverse graded MS70, even in the same calendar year. The grade ceiling is the same; what differs is the reverse-design attribute. The same precedence applies on the gold side, where the reverse-design attribute and the per-grade ceiling ride in parallel — see Gold Eagle denominations for the per-grade / per-denomination baseline on the gold side.

Both PR70 (proof) and MS70 (bullion or burnished) carry the per-grade ceiling premium; the per-coin premium is roughly the same on both sides of the finish axis, with the binding shifting to the finish axis only where the burnished / proof branch introduces a separate scarcity premium documented in section 03 of the sibling guide Proof vs burnished.

Three drivers stack on the Type-2 axis. First, the first-year run is short: the mid-2021 switchover drove a roughly six-month strike window on the 2021 calendar year, and the supply curve for the first-year Type-2 reverse permanently anchors the per-cert premium above the post-2022 baseline. Second, the label/pedigree track adds a second layer of scarcity — the early-generation holders, the special-run labels (NGC America-250, signed-label runs), and the burnished / proof branch label distinctions documented in section 03 above all add per-cert scarcity onto the first-year baseline. Third, the per-grade ceiling at 70 (section 04) gates the per-coin premium shift upward at the 70-mark; pieces below 70 trade at a meaningful discount even within the Type-2 axis.

The standardized silver premium floor (the floor at which a generic post-2022 Type-2 MS70 trades) is what the buyback calculator binds to when no row-specific premium is available; the per-cert uplift on a 2021 first-year Type-2 MS70 is what the buyback calculator binds to when the cert matches a piece on the tray. The uplift is what the buyback flow surfaces as premium/oz above spot — same formula as the home pricing card, same per-grade / per-metal split documented in section 06 below.

The buyback-binding rule is the same one we publish on FAQ · buyback terms — if your cert matches a piece already on our tray, the offer binds to that row’s premium; otherwise the per-grade default is published on the offer screen so you can see exactly which premium applied before you accept. Lead-time: same-day against the morning spot.

The per-coin formula is the same one we publish on the home pricing card and the same one the buyback calculator runs: price = spot + premium/oz. The premium is per-metal and per-grade, and shifts upward on the Type-2 reverse the same way it shifts upward on the finish axis documented in Proof vs burnished — the two axes compound.

Worked example, 1 oz Silver · 2021 Type-2 MS70: a 2021 first-year Type-2 MS70 trades above the standardized +$18/oz silver premium floor because the holder market pays up for the first-year run. A post-2022 Type-2 MS70 rides the standardized floor; a 2021 first-year Type-2 MS70 commands the scarcity-level premium for that specific cert. The compounding on the finish axis (proof vs bullion vs burnished) is what shifts the per-grade ceiling within the Type-2 reverse — a Type-2 PR70 trades above the Type-2 MS70 baseline at the per-grade ceiling, and below the West-Point burnished-label scarcity documented in the sibling guide on burnished labels.

If the cert you bring matches a piece on our tray, the offer binds to that row’s premium; otherwise the per-grade default is published on the offer screen so you can see exactly which premium applied before you accept. The same lead-time as the rest of the buyback flow: same-day against the morning spot.