A lesson on Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles

After an absence of several months I have decided to begin work on making these threads once more. In the past I had created threads for the HOF coins and colonial American coins. Today’s subject is the legendary Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle.


In 1905 president Theodore Roosevelt visited the Smithsonian museum to view the collection of Ancient Greek. He was very impressed by the aesthetics of the Ancient coins so he set out to redesign the entire line of coinage in the United States. From the cent all the way up to the Double Eagle. Who was the man chosen to redesign the line of American coinage you ask? Why, it was designer and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens of course.


When Augustus Saint-Gauden’s was given the task by the president to redesign the coins that he could legally redesign ($10 gold $20 gold and 1 cent) he was very ill. Throughout the next two years St. Gaudens worked tirelessly to finish his designs. A finished design of the $10 and $20 gold coins were completed and he made a mold for the 1 cent before dying at age 58 in 1907.


Augustus Saint-Gaudens had completed his finest work shortly before he died and the Mint immediately began producing his design, replacing the liberty head $20 gold coin. The first year of production has a few different patterns. The first being the Ultra High Relief plain edge (unique) and the Ultra High Relief lettered edge. Every design for the year of 1907 after this pattern did not have the motto in god we trust.

Interesting Fact: A 1907 Ultra High Relief Lettered Edge Saint-Gaudens double eagle sold at the heritage Auction for $2.5M in PF-69 condition in November of 2005. Today this coin is offered in the same condition on Amazon for $3.75M you can take a look at it here



Following the Lettered edge design the next pattern replaced the 1907 with Roman Numerals MCMVII this pattern comes in wire rim and flat rim variations. The last pattern for 1907 is the Arabic numeral pattern.

In 1908 there were still double eagles that were minted without the motto in god we trust because President Theodore Roosevelt did not think god should be on coins. However this spurred a lot of public debate and congress acted quickly to make sure that the motto was reinstated. A 1908 no motto specimen in ms62 condition sold at auction for $750 in June 2006. The Mint began producing the 1908 double eagle later in the year but mintages were very low.

The 1908-S with motto double eagle is the very first double eagle in the series to be minted in San Fransisco with a low mintage of 22,000 this double eagle is 1 of the key dates in the series. In January of 2012 this coin sold for $161,000 in MS67 condition at the Heritage Auction.


In 1909 there was a 1909/8 over date double Eagle this is valued significantly higher than the regular 1909 in Mint State condition. Here is a picture to help you identify the coin.



On April 5th 1933 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued executive order 6102 under this order the possession of gold in the form of coinage or bullion was declared illegal. Thus bringing an end to the Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle which is fifth cousin President Theodore Roosevelt fought to establish. The government began to confiscate Gold throughout the nation and were to be melted down immediately. However some brave Mint employees risked prison time to save some of these double eagles. There are 13 1933 double eagles that survived and 1 of them known as the king Farouk of Egypt specimen had sold at Auction. King Farouk had the coin legally imported before the secret service knew that the coin was on the market. When King Farouk had died the Secret Service tried to act quickly to confiscate the double eagle but failed to do so as the coin had vanished. It arrived on the scene once more when a British coin dealer brought the coin to New York where the Secret Service did a sting operation to confiscate the coin. The coin dealer known as Stephen Fenton fought for several years in U.S courts over the ownership of the Double Eagle


Interesting Fact: The 1933 king Farouk double eagle was almost lost forever. After the Secret service confiscated the coin they stored it in the treasury vaults in the world trade center. Luckily a settlement was reached just 2 months before the terrorist attack took place on 9/11/01. The US Mint agreed to sell the Coin at auction and split the proceedings with Fenton. The coin sold at auction for $6.6M on July 30th 2002. The buyer chose to remain anonymous so it is unclear where this coin is and whether it will be in the market once more.

There were another 10 1933 double Eagles discovered by a heir of Israel Switt, the man who saved a few of the 1933 double eagles. The woman who discovered these coins had sent them to the United States Mint for Authentication, it seems he was completely unaware of their legal status and the coins were promptly seized by the Secret Service and the woman Joan langbord is fighting over ownership of the coins still to this day while they sit in the bullion deposits of Fort Knox.




Most of the Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles that were minted in 1920s were returned to the Mint and melted down after the executive order 6102 was instated. These coins were also saved by some Mint employees and the number of surviving examples range from a few dozen to a few hundred thousand. This is why some of the double eagles command a lot of money even though the mintages were some of the highest in the series. For example a 1925-S Double Eagle has a mintage of 3,776,500 and in MS63 can command $15,000 while a double Eagle dated 1924 has a mintage of 4,323,500 and in ms63 can command only $1800.

This concludes my lesson on Saint-Gaudens double Eagles. I hope many of you learned a thing or two from this lesson. I'll be posting more lesson fairly soon.

 

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Saint-Gaudens.

 

Good write up... It may contain my favorite numismatic typo EVER....

 

Sorry about that.

 

His name was Israel Switt.

 

A bounder and a cad........but a shrewd man indeed.......

 

a suggestion? When you say Fact - ....,etc; the first thing it makes me think is the rest isn't true (or too many critical thinking courses for me...?); anyway still a nice summary Josh, also always great to cite source materials should folks like to read more.

 

Could you mail out some free samples of these double eagles you speak of. This way we will have a better understanding of this thread.

 

I agree with Ken that Swift was no hero , but a thief .

 

I don't know about Free but you can get a fine example in the neighborhood of $1800-$2000

 

"A 1908 no motto specimen in ms62 condition sold at auction for $750,000 in June 2006."

Isn't the 1908 no motto one of the most abundant Saints?

 

Edited: language! read rules Took me 15 minutes to get here. I don't understand anything about how this message board works.

 

It was $750 not $750,000 man was I way off

 

I know how to plan and load a B747 freighter but don't put me behind a computer...
The centerpiece of "High Relief Serie" is a 1907 Flat Rim. PCGS nor NGC want to
give it a MS grade. Because it has some hairlines. I have tried to sell the coin then still graded (I have taken it out the PCGS holder) at a Stacks Bowers auction. Where SB in their brochure said it was a Mint State coin?! But I withdrew and took my coin back. 1000$ I had to pay to get it back.
I hope I were able to attach what needed to be attached. Dents and scratches on a MS61 coin. And my coin gets: "details , scratches OR rim nick" . if I remember well.
Just trying to understand.

 

That's a nice coin. I would have kept it in a pcgs slab. What did both companies grade it at? It sure is a nice coin.

 

Thanks for clearing that up. I was starting to feel rich.

 

edited

 

Good ... evening there. It's 04:20AM here.
PCGS graded it "details , scratches OR rim nick" if I remember well.
I am happy I took it out of their holder. It doesn't belong in there.
You saw the MS61 graded coin full of scratches and dents ?
I am also happy to be able to discuss this subject here on this message board
and would like to receive reactions. I believe the pictures are detailed enough to
be able to give an opinion.
So happy