Saint-Gaudens Gold

About This Series

President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned Augustus Saint-Gaudens to redesign American coinage, and the $20 double eagle he produced is widely considered the most beautiful coin the US Mint ever made. The 1907 high-relief version required five or more strikes to bring up the design and proved impractical for mass production; the lower-relief version that followed is what most collectors know. The 1933 date is the most dramatic in American numismatics: nearly half a million were struck, then ordered melted as FDR ended the gold standard. One legal example sold at auction in 2002 for over $7 million.