The Saint-Gaudens double eagle, or $20 gold piece, stands above the the other US Coin designs as the single most magnificent coin in U.S. history.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens was a towering figure in the sphere of American fine arts. His brilliance and renown brought him to the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt, who was determined to re-make US coinage. Both men admired the high-relief coinage of ancient Greece, and both agreed that U.S. gold coins patterned after that model would be a spectacular achievement. They would also stand in stark contrast to the two undistinguished-looking coins that were being replaced, the Liberty double eagle and the Coronet eagle, both of which had their roots in the first half of the 19th century.

The double eagle is a masterpiece. Its obverse features a full-length portrait of Liberty with a torch in her right hand and an olive branch in her left. She is shown in full stride with rays of sunlight behind her and the U.S. Capitol Building to the left of her flowing gown. Encircling her are 46 stars—one for each state in the Union at that time. The coin’s reverse depicts a breathtaking eagle in flight, with the sun below extending its rays upward. Above the eagle, in two semicircular tiers, are the inscriptions UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and TWENTY DOLLARS. High points to check for wear are Liberty’s breast and knee and the eagle’s wing.

Saint-Gaudens placed another required motto, E PLURIBUS UNUM, along the edge of the coin, thus reducing the clutter on the obverse and reverse and reinforcing their clean, open look.

In 1986, the U.S. Treasury paid the “Saint” the highest compliment by placing its obverse design on the American Eagle gold bullion coins, where it has remained ever since.

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From 1850, when the first regular issue double eagle was struck, to 1933, when the denomination was suspended by the emergency decree of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, more than 174 million pieces were minted.

The Liberty double eagle design is credited to James B. Longacre but has its roots in Christian Gobrecht’s $10 Eagle of 1839. The obverse features a Greco-Roman head of Liberty facing left, with hair tied in a bun and curls flowing down to the base of the bust. She is wearing a coronet inscribed with LIBERTY. Thirteen stars surround the bust with the date positioned below.

The reverse depicts an eagle with outstretched wings holding an olive branch and arrows. A shield with straight sides (Type 1) gave way to a rounded ornate shield in 1866 when the motto IN GOD WE TRUST was added to the oval of stars above the eagle (Type 2). There is a pattern of rays in a semicircle touching each wing. In 1877, Chief Engraver William Barber tilted Liberty’s head forward and replaced the denomination TWENTY D. with TWENTY DOLLARS (Type 3).

The Type 3 Liberty double eagle was by far the largest mintage of the three types with 64,137,477 business strikes

Millions of Type 3 Liberty double eagles were shipped overseas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to be used as bank reserves. In recent years, average circulated, common date Liberty double eagles have been used as a hedge against inflation and as an alternative bullion coin to the Krugerrand, Maple Leaf and American Eagle.

Liberty $20 Double Eagle Prices

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The $10 eagle issued since 1866 was a continuation of the original design by Christian Gobrecht which was also used on the Quarter eagle and Half Eagles, and featured a Coronet Head, a neoclassic head of Liberty adorned with a coronet inscribed LIBERTY. Thirteen stars surround the bust, with the date below.

The reverse depicts an eagle holding arrows and an olive branch, encircled by the inscriptions UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and TEN D. Chief Engraver James Barton Longacre placed the new motto on a scroll over the eagle’s head.

Over the entire life of the series, only 37 dates show six-digit production, and just 10 dates saw more than one million struck, with most of those appearing btween 1893 and the last year of production in 1907.

Indian Head Eagle (1907 - 1933)

The new gold coins of 1907 were the result of the unprecedented collaboration of a great sculptor and a dynamic President, Theodore Roosevelt and Augustus St. Guadens.

The bust on the new eagle was almost identical to the Nike head(Victory) that Saint Gaudens designed for Sherman’s monument in New York’s Central Park. At Roosevelt’s insistence, she shed her laurel crown for a handsome, but historically impossible Indian feathered war bonnet. LIBERTY was inscribed on the Indian’s headdress, with 13 stars above the head and the date below. The reverse’s eagle stands on a bundle of arrows, with the motto E PLURIBUS UNUM to the right. Encircling the periphery above the eagle is the legend UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Below is the denomination TEN DOLLARS.

A departure from other standards is found on the edge of the coin where 46 raised stars appear between 1907 and 1911, and 48 raised stars between 1912 and 1933. The stars are arranged signifying the states of the Union. The mint mark can be found on the coin’s reverse to the left of the branch. The motto was restored by an act of Congress in 1908.

Regular issue coins were struck at all three Mints from 1908 through 1911, and 1914; Only Philadelphia and San Francisco struck eagles in 1912, 1913 and 1915, and only San Francisco struck them in 1916 and 1920. Few Americans noticed the change to 48 stars on the edge in 1912, honoring statehood achieved by Arizona and New Mexico. Coinage throughout the 1920’s was very sporadic, representing just four dates: 1926, 1930-S, 1932 and 1933. The Philadelphia Mint struck 312,500 coins in 1933, but released only a few dozen pieces before President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 6260 ended circulation of gold coins and notes.

Issues most commonly sold as generic mint state examples are ethe 1926 and 1932.

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The $5 gold half eagle was familiar in American economic life. It had been in constant use since the early days of the Republic and was one of the longest lasting denominations in United States history.

The contemporary half eagle coin minted since 1839 and in use at the end of the war had been designed by Mint Engraver Christian Gobrecht.Liberty is depicted as thinner and more delicate than on the previous version. She is wearing a tiara engraved with the inscription LIBERTY, and her hair is tied in a bun with a string of beads. Thirteen stars surround the bust with the date positioned below.

The reverse shows an eagle with outstretched wings, Union shield on its breast, perched on an olive branch and holding three arrows in its left claw. The inscription UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and the denomination FIVE D. encircle the eagle just inside the beaded border. In 1866, Gobrecht’s successor as Chief Engraver, James Longacre, added the new motto IN GOD WE TRUST to a scroll placed above the eagle’s head.

The mintage was large enough so that almost every date after 1878 is available, many in gem condition. Although most type collectors seek just one example each of the “no motto” and “with motto” types, a very popular collection is a set of Coronet half eagles from every mint.

In 1908, the Coronet half eagle gave way to the Indian Head design of Bela Lyon Pratt, fulfilling President Theodore Roosevelt’s dream of an artistic national coinage. The new half eagle not only continued the use of the motto IN GOD WE TRUST, but incorporated the earlier motto E PLURIBUS UNUM as well.

$5.00 Indian Head (1908 - 1929)

Indian Head gold pieces are unlike any other coins produced before or since by Uncle Sam: Their designs and inscriptions are sunken below the surface of the coins, rather than being raised. This innovative technique was quite daring, for no other modern coins had ever used it.

The idea of recessing the coins’ features came from William Sturgis Bigelow, a Boston physician and art lover who happened to be a close friend of Roosevelt’s. Bigelow had seen incuse relief in Egyptian art works at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and he piqued the president’s interest with his notion of adapting this technique to U. S. coinage. With Roosevelt’s blessing, he engaged a fellow Bostonian, noted sculptor Bela-Lyon Pratt, to prepare coinage models, and Pratt developed designs pairing an Indian brave on the obverse with an eagle in repose on the reverse.

Beyond their unusual relief, they also represented the first fundamental design change in the two denominations in nearly 70 years. Other than the addition of the words IN GOD WE TRUST in 1866, the previous half eagle—which carried a portrait of Liberty with a coronet in her hair—had been basically the same since its origin in 1839.

Indian Head half eagles were issued annually from 1908 through 1916; in one year, 1909, four different mints produced them (branch-mint issues are denoted by a mint mark to the left of the fasces on the reverse). After 1916, production was suspended for thirteen years; it then resumed for one last hurrah in 1929 at the Philadelphia Mint before the series ended for good in the face of the Great Depression.

The Philadelphia Mint pieces of 1908 represent one of the most available dates of this series in mint state.

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This unusual denomination was created by the Mint Act of February 21, 1853, which authorized a three-dollar gold coin. Congress and Mint Director Robert Maskell Patterson were convinced that the new coin would speed purchases of three-cent stamps by the sheet and of the silver three-cent coins in roll quantities.

Chief Engraver James Barton Longacre chose an “Indian Princess” for his obverse—not a Native American profile, but actually a profile modeled after the Greco-Roman Venus Accroupie statue then in a Philadelphia museum. Longacre used this distinctive sharp-nosed profile on his gold dollar of 1849 and would employ it again on the Indian Head cent of 1859.’

On the three-dollar coin Liberty is wearing a feathered headdress of equal-sized plumes with a band bearing LIBERTY in raised letters. She’s surrounded by the inscription UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Such a headdress dates back to the earliest known drawings of American Indians. Longacre’s reverse depicted a wreath of tobacco, wheat, corn and cotton with a plant at top bearing two conical seed masses.

Very few mint state examples survive of any but the handful of relatively common dates such as 1878, is the most common date with an original mintage of 82,304.

Three Dollar Gold Prices

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Christian Gobrecht’s Coronet design used on the quarter eagle starting in 1840. The design as finally adopted featured a large head of Liberty facing left, wearing a wide coronet inscribed with the word LIBERTY. The reverse featured the heraldic eagle with its wings spread from rim to rim with the union shield covering its breast. An olive branch representing the country’s peaceful intentions is in the eagle’s right claw, with three arrows emphasizing military preparedness in the left. The legend UNITED STATES OF AMERICA surrounds the eagle, with the denomination 2 1/2 D. beneath the bird.

Between 1840 and 1907, a total of 11,921,171 Coronet quarter eagles were struck at five mints: Philadelphia (no mintmark), Charlotte (C), Dahlonega (D), New Orleans (O), and San Francisco (S), however the common generic Liberty Head quarter Eagles generally all date from 1888 - 1907.

The unchanging durability of the Coronet design on quarter eagles is unrivalled in the history of U.S. coinage. This exceptionally long span of time still stands as the longest uninterrupted use of a coin design without a major design alteration

Indian Head Quarter Eagle (1908 - 1929)

The Indian Head quarter eagle and its larger companion, the half eagle, stand out from all the rest of United States coinage because their designs and lettering are sunken in a plane that is uniformly flat. The highest points of relief are level with the coins’ fields, and they have no raised rims to protect them from wear. In fact, the only element of these coins to exceed the level of their fields are their mintmarks, if any. Sculptor Bela Lyon Pratt created the Indian Head Design used on the $2.50 and $5.00.

The obverse depicts a realistic-looking Indian brave in a war bonnet, with the date, thirteen stars and the motto LIBERTY forming a circle around this central device. The reverse shows an eagle in repose, perched upon fasces and an olive branch, the intertwined symbols of preparedness and peace.

Indian Head quarter eagles were issued annually from 1908 through 1915. At that point, the Mint suspended their production for a decade; when it resumed in 1925, the coins were struck for five more years before the series ended in 1929—one of many victims of that year’s Wall Street crash.

This series offers the advantage of being perhaps the only series of United States gold coins easily completed. Aside from the 1911-D, all dates in this series are readily available in mint state. They also make for a fun and satisfying collection

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The Type 1 Gold dollar was produced from 1849 to 1854. Composed of 90% pure gold, it was the smallest denomination of gold currency ever produced in the United States. When the US system of coinage was originally designed there had been no plans for a gold dollar coin, but in the late 1840s, two gold rushes later, Congress was looking to expand the use of gold in the country’s currency.

The gold dollar was authorized by the Act of March 3, 1849, and the Liberty Head type began circulating soon afterward. Because of the high value of gold, the gold dollar is the smallest coin in the history of US coinage.The gold dollar had its origins more than a decade before the Act of March 3, in the Carolina gold rush of the 1830s.

Designed by James B. Longacre, the first type of gold dollar is known as the “Liberty Head” type or the “Type I” gold dollar. The obverse of the coins depicts Liberty’s head circled by thirteen stars. She faces to the left and wears a coronet inscribed with the word “LIBERTY”. The reverse depicts a simple wreath encircling the date and value of the coin, and the inscription “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”. Weighing 1.672 grams, the coin had a composition of .900 gold and .100 copper. It therefore contained .04837 ounces of pure gold.

Gold Dollar Type II (1854 - 1856)

In 1854 the US Mint issued the redesigned gold dollar with an increased diameter of 15 mm. As planned, neither its weight not its composition was changed.

James Longacre designed a new obverse for the coin based on his work with the three-dollar piece. The head depicted on the obverse has commonly been described as an “Indian princess,” and gave this type its name. However, historians have suggested that the design is actually based on a Roman marble figure, to which a headdress was added by Longacre. More specifically, it has been suggested that he based the design on “Crouching Venus” a statue on display in the Philadelphia museum.

In addition to the obverse, the reverse of the gold dollar was also modified somewhat, and the inscription “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” was moved to the obverse. The overall wreath design remained unchanged . The Type II Dollars are by far the rarest of the three types.

Gold Dollar Type III (1856 - 1889)

In 1856, a newly durable gold dollar was released by the Mint. Dubbed “the Large Head type,”

The type 3 $1 gold piece is virtually the same design as the type 2. The difference between the three coins is that the head of the Princess, portrayed on the type 3 is considerably larger than either the Type 1 or Type 2 variety. The head of the Indian Princes extends to a point that touches the legend, “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”, which encircles a large portion of the coin’s perimeter. The type 3 represents a majority of the years that that $1 gold piece was produced.

The new type was minted continuously at Philadelphia, but in certain years quantities were also produced at Charlotte, Dahlonega, and San Francisco.

Production of the gold dollar was discontinued in 1889, but the coin continued to circulate in some areas until the country abandoned the gold standard in the early 1930s.

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