A series of new and very beautiful types for the American coinage resulted from a collaboration between Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) and Augustus Saint Gaudens, one of America’s finest artists. Roosevelt wanted to upgrade America’s image by the appearance of the national coinage.  He also wanted them to have a beauty and high relief that was comparable to the coins of ancient Greece. Saint Gaudens accepted the challenge and created the 20 dollar coin (double eagle) first.

The coin features a full length image of liberty in flowing gown in front of the rising sun with the Capitol Building in the  background and walking forward as if stepping out of the coin. The word LIBERTY is written above her head.

She holds the torch of enlightenment in her right hand and an olive branch of peace in her left hand. The coin’s edge is surrounded by 46 stars and 5 branches. The date is shown in Roman numerals (MCMVII) to the right of this figure, with the engraver’s initials, ASG, below it.

The reverse features a majestic eagle  flying in the rays of the sun. In the upper part, the inscriptions: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA – TWENTY DOLLARS appear in two concentric arcs.

Twenty-two test coins were minted in very high relief which required  nine hits of the coining press; two of them were subsequently melted down. Two of the remaining examples are in the American Numismatic Association’s collection. The Smithsonian Institution and the Theodore Roosevelt Museum both have one example.  The coins needed to be reworked to lower relief but the samples in the opinion of chief engraver Charles Barber were still to complex for practical use. However, Roosevelt ordered production to begin in late 1907.  11,250 coins were minted with lower relief and these entered circulation. They had the words E PLURIBUS UNUM on their edge. There were only 13 rays of sunshine on the reverse side compared to 14 on the test pieces.

They were too complex for mass production and bankers and businessmen complained that they were difficult to stack.

The Mint replaced the dies with ones of lower relief and substituted the Roman date with Arabic numerals. The coins had a much less salient relief and some of the detail was lost but the overall beauty was intact.. They entered circulation at the end of 1907 and continued to be minted during the following years.

One thing all 1907 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles have in common is the omission of the motto IN GOD WE TRUST ( found on every gold coin since 1866). Roosevelt wanted this left off because he considered it blasphemous to write the name of God on money, since it could be spent for immoral purposes. However, Congress took a dim view of the missing motto and passed legislation in 1908 mandating its restoration. Roosevelt decreed that the expression would be used on new coins: during 1908, it was added on the reverse side of the coin above the sun.

The Saint-Gaudens gold double eagle coin was issued every year from 1907 to 1916, and again from 1920 to 1933. Most of the “Saints” dated 1929 and later were held in government vaults to augment the federal gold reserve, and nearly of all these were melted following President Franklin Roosevelt’s Gold Order of 1933 (the great confiscation). Under this directive, gold coinage or bullion in private hands was declared illegal, and required redemption to the government in exchange for other forms of currency. Gold coins with numismatic value were not subject to the Gold Order, however. Once the gold had been consolidated under federal control, the Treasury department set the price of gold bullion at $35.00 an ounce, up from $20.67, nearly doubling the value of the gold in its possession. The price of gold was regulated by the government until January 1, 1975, when all gold ownership restrictions and price controls were ended.

The 1933 double eagle currently holds the record for the highest price ever paid for a U.S. coin when it was purchased in 2002 for $7.59 million. There were 445,500 double eagles minted in 1933, but none were ever placed into circulation and nearly every last one of them was melted down after the Gold Order was issued ( see The Great Confiscation)

The Saint-Gaudens Liberty Double Eagle Specifications

Weight of gold = 33.44 x 900/1000 =30.1gms of pure gold

Tags: DOLLAR, Gold, Gold coins, Money

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 12:32 pm and is filed under Gold, Gold coins, Money, Numismatics, USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.