How common was it to use a $20 gold piece in everyday life?

I think you may be overstating your case here a bit. I'd happily trade 1 oz. gold bullion coins even up for PCGS or NGC certified MS63 double eagles.

But in general, I agree that $20 gold pieces mainly saw use in commercial transactions and as reserves rather than in everyday use for personal transactions. Before the shipwreck coins were salvaged and "conserved," mint state Type I and Type II Liberty Head $20's were quite rare -- most pieces show wear consistent with transport and transfer rather than day-in, day-out use. But by the time Type III coins showed up in quantity, within the United States specie-backed paper money was in more common use and traded at par. Even so, until you get to 20th century coins, the mint state survivors tend to have nicks and chatter which keep them in the MS61-MS62 range. The only coin I've ever been tempted to "crack out" is an 1893-S $20 in MS-62 because of the $1000+ jump between '62 and '63.

 

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Pointers to where I can so buy them welcome. Thanks, because I can sell them, all day, at $150 over spot.

 

As I have been researching this more, it appears the $20 gold coins were not commonly used in everyday life.

However, off topic, Excepting 1861-1879 when coins were hoarded in the East and Midwest, smaller denomination gold coins circulated extensively from 1834 onward (I assume until 1933).

 

Before the days of general acceptance of checks, Millionaires and such had to carry large sums of cash. This was technically general circulation, but was often like silver and gold reserves in that they spent most of their time out of circulation. Then, every once in a great while, they'd pull one out to make an impression.

As the acceptance of bank checks grew with the Federalization of Banks and protections afforded the holders of checks and depositors, this need was reduced and then eliminated. You will note most large bills ceased being printed after 1928.

Now the $100,000 bill was intended to only be circulated among Federal Reserve Banks.

Now check these facts. I'm repeating them from memory so they are subject to senior moments.

 

Again I ask, where? I can easily buy gold bars at $35 an ounce over spot, so even being on the wrong side of the spread, if I can buy the MS-63 double eagles at that price there's $100+ per coin arbitrage to be had.

 

spot per ounce of gold: €1,306.78
Krügerrand, 1oz Gold, 2012: €1,348.97

to be bought here: http://www.coininvestdirect.com

And I agree with the notion that the number of slabbed coins are not a conclusive indicator for the total distribution of grades in a series in all cases, it only reflects the coins considered "suitable" to be graded among the entire struck population which creates a subset.

 

Sorry, once you add in BP I did not find a single example at Heritage. Here's the least expensive I found for October:
http://coins.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=1175&lotNo=10487
Nor are Heritage auctions "every day, all day."

Certainly.
http://www.providentmetals.com/bullion/gold/private-gold/1-ozt-gold-bars.html

 

I did look at the last 3 months at Heritage, but stuck to October since we're talking about "all day, any day" prices. That $1880 price is actually $200 over spot for that day in September -- remember that $20 gold pieces only contain .9675 of an ounce of gold.

A 10% premium over spot may have been the industry standard for 1oz coins and bars when gold was in the $300-$400 range, but it isn't now and hasn't been for many years. Checking my records, I find that the average premium over spot I've paid for bullion is 2.7%, a number brought up a bit because I buy coins rather than bars, but brought down a bit since I bought a number of 1oz Grant Wood Commemorative Arts medals at $10 over spot. Currently, quantity one premiums for 1oz GAE's are in the 5.1% range, with the bid-ask spread less than half that.

As of yesterday, the bid price for MS-63 $20's at Apmex was $140 over spot, whereas for generic $20's it's more like $90-$100.