Heritage World Coin Auctions
FUN Signature US Coin Sale 1251 4-6 & 8-9 Jan 2017
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High Relief Double Eagles
1907 $20 High Relief, Flat Rim, MS64 NGC. After Augustus Saint-Gaudens accepted the commission from President Roosevelt to redesign the nation's ten and twenty dollar gold coins, he sketched out in words what he wanted to convey with the design of the double eagle. In a letter to the president on November 11, 1905, he proposed:
" ... some kind of a (possibly winged) figure of Liberty striding energetically forward as if on a mountain top, holding aloft on one arm a shield bearing the stars and stripes with the word 'Liberty' marked across the field, in the other perhaps a flaming torch; the drapery would be flowing in the breeze. My idea is to make it a living thing and typical of progress ..."
Obvious modifications were made from Saint-Gaudens' original concept to finished product, but the coin as produced in both the High Relief and later Lower Relief versions retained the sculptor's initial figural idea of Liberty as "a living thing and typical of progress." One of the modifications was slight, but important to Mint personnel, and that involved elimination of the "fin" or what we call today the wire rim. This was seen as a design flaw by the Mint. Flat Rim twenties are four or five times rarer than their Wire Rim counterparts. This example has almost a complete lack of the "fin" on each side. The surfaces display the usual satiny mint luster and have a slight reddish tinge on each side. The only surface flaws are a couple of tiny planchet voids located on the squared-off obverse rim.
Ex: Summer FUN Signature (Heritage, 7/2011), lot 5187.
1907 $20 High Relief, Flat Rim, MS64 NGC. After Augustus Saint-Gaudens accepted the commission from President Roosevelt to redesign the nation's ten and twenty dollar gold coins, he sketched out in words what he wanted to convey with the design of the double eagle. In a letter to the president on November 11, 1905, he proposed:
" ... some kind of a (possibly winged) figure of Liberty striding energetically forward as if on a mountain top, holding aloft on one arm a shield bearing the stars and stripes with the word 'Liberty' marked across the field, in the other perhaps a flaming torch; the drapery would be flowing in the breeze. My idea is to make it a living thing and typical of progress ..."
Obvious modifications were made from Saint-Gaudens' original concept to finished product, but the coin as produced in both the High Relief and later Lower Relief versions retained the sculptor's initial figural idea of Liberty as "a living thing and typical of progress." One of the modifications was slight, but important to Mint personnel, and that involved elimination of the "fin" or what we call today the wire rim. This was seen as a design flaw by the Mint. Flat Rim twenties are four or five times rarer than their Wire Rim counterparts. This example has almost a complete lack of the "fin" on each side. The surfaces display the usual satiny mint luster and have a slight reddish tinge on each side. The only surface flaws are a couple of tiny planchet voids located on the squared-off obverse rim.
Ex: Summer FUN Signature (Heritage, 7/2011), lot 5187.