Featured A Brief History of the 1907 High Relief Double Eagle

Most numismatists believe that the 1907 High Relief $20 gold piece is the most beautiful U.S. coin. This piece was the “pet baby” of President Theodore Roosevelt who started the “Renaissance of American Coinage” which extended from 1907 to 1921.

In 1905 President Roosevelt met with Augustus St. Gaudens who was viewed as the greatest American artist of his era. Roosevelt was very dissatisfied with the designs of the coins which were then in circulation and wanted to introduce a series of U.S. coinage designs that would be on a par with America’s emerging greatness. The president asked St. Gaudens to redesign every U.S. coin from the cent to the double eagle. St. Gaudens had more assignments than he could complete, and he was also becoming progressively ill with terminal cancer. Therefore he drew up the designs and assigned an artist, Henry Herring, who worked in the St. Gaudens studio, to execute the models.

St. Gaudens and Roosevelt were aware that they would face bureaucratic problems at the U.S. mint. Chief mint engraver, Charles Barber, had held his office for over 27 years. Barber took a dim view of an interfering president and an outside artist taking his job. This resulted in protracted feuds between mint personnel and the St. Gaudens studio. In my view both sides had their points. Improving the generally dull appearance of the then current U.S. coinage was long overdue, but the coins also had to be economical to produce and acceptable in the world commerce.

After considerable wrangling President Roosevelt got his way … for about month. During November and for a brief period in January 1908 the U.S. mint went on a 24/7 schedule produced a total of 12,367 double eagles in high relief. The coins were stuck on a medal press, and it took from three blows from the dies to bring up the design. The coins were made in batches of 1,000 because they had to be made with the same set of dies to avoid doubling of the devices. Between each strike, the planchets had to be annealed to soften them for the next strike. The resulting coins were very beautiful but also very impractical. After this brief run, Roosevelt agreed that the High Relief coins were not practical, and the lower relief coins took their place.

The coin pictured above is a superb example of the 1907 High Relief $20 coin. It is virtually mark free surfaces, and the soft satiny luster that typical of this piece. I have called these coins “The most expensive “common” coin in the U.S. series. More than half of the original mintage survives, but most any example of the coin is priced well within 5 figures because of demand.

Here is an example of the "low relief" double eagle that replaced the original design.

 

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Lordy that coin has melted my butter since i discovered my love of coins.

 

Those are both Omegas right

Kidding obviously.

 

Very nice article! Should be featured.

 

Wow , what a difference between the two. The high relief has so much depth.

 

If I buy just one more US coin, this would be it. Beautiful example!

 

And then of course there were the Ultra high relief pieces. These were basically patterns and they took 9 blows of the medal press to strike up fully.

 

The HR Saint cost about $45,000 in MS 65. It costs $15,000 even in AU 58.

There are thousands of these coins available in total and a few hundred in the AU 58 range and a few hundred in the mid-60's.

So it stands to reason that people who hold this coin, at those price points (and above), are SERIOUS coin collectors at the high end.

Otherwise, I think the prices for the 1907 High Relief would be LOWER, right ? Can any other (gold) coin with the population numbers that the 1907 HR has from AU 50 - MS 67 sell at a multiple of melt value (>15X) like the High Relief ?

 

Lovely example, JM. This is a particular coin that while special and artistically beautiful, just doesn't convince me at the current price levels due to its abundant availability. When I can go to a single dealer's website and pick out any number from the 25+ that are available, it makes it very difficult to rationalize spending the money on it.

 

I'm not sure what you are saying...are you saying the 1907 HR is overpriced relative to other coins....or just not "worth it" in absolute terms ?

If somebody told me they'd give me $50,000 and I could have an MS65 1907 HR or a dozen coins, including some HR's for the same $$$$, I'd take the 1907 High Relief.

 

May not be a good investment or whatever at these prices, but Nice though!

 

My general philosophy is that I want to pay up for QUALITY and not QUANTITY.

I do agree that like an overpriced growth stock that the prices for 1907 HR's might be too high given investment demand for the coins.

You had a demographic tailwind for prices. Coin collectors in the 1950's and 1960's are today in their 60's and 70's and have the $$$ to get the coin of their youth dreams. Today's youngsters may not have the same affection for the Saint-Gaudens coins, and hence demand may slowly ebb in future years.

Remember, the premium to gold for Saint-Gaudens was once as high as 500-800% for MS65 commons; today it's under 30%. It took decades to wring out the excess, we may see the same thing with the 1907 HRs.

 

I'm saying it's an over-priced coin relative to its availability. What other coin does anyone know of whereas one can pick a PCGS or NGC straight-graded example out today from over 75 available on one website alone, all in AU50 to PF67, and yet still cost over $10K in AU-50 grade? Like I noted earlier - it's a beautiful coin, but for me, its availability doesn't support current price levels compared to other coins of much higher rarity. We can consider the "demand" factor, but that doesn't seem all that logical, because if there was such high demand for it, there wouldn't be so many of them sitting around in inventory. To me, it bespeaks of artificial pricing.

 

Demand for a coin, token or medal is FAR more important than supply. There could be only one or two examples of something, but if nobody wants it, it has no value.

You would have to have quite a conspiracy going for a long time to keep the prices that high for the 1907 High Relief $20 gold. Only a few sellers breaking ranks would bring it down, and yet it has not happened.

One of the factors that has kept the prices high is demand from the artworld. You see this coin listed in the artbooks as a “work of St. Gaudens.” If you are a well to do collector, but not worth tens of millions of dollars, this beautiful coin offers and opportunity to own something that was designed by “the master.” Other opportunities are limited, and only one of them, the 1893 Columbian Award Medal is really common. All of the other medals designed by St. Gaudens are very scarce to rare and usually expensive.

Finally, you have the “trophy coin market” where those with lots of cash, and limited interest in coins, but a desire to own something large and impressive, have reason to go after this coin. This mentality has driven up the market for California $50 gold slugs.

I know that there are a lot of gold coin collectors, who might specialize in the southern mints, who think this piece is way overpriced. They look at the surviving populations of what they collect, which all rarer than this coin, and wonder how the price holds up. The answer is that you have a huge audience for this coin and an intriguing story surrounding it that involves a popular U.S. president, Theodore Roosevelt. It’s just that simple.

 

I think you pretty much nailed it on the high price. Might add there are serious coin collectors who collect other series and have no real interest in St. Gaudins DEs, but they have the means and want this one. They also acquire a high-end proof walker as well.

Similar thing happens with ancient Greek Athenian owls. They are more plentiful in high grades than high relief St. Gaudins DEs. But demand is huge. Even folks who have no other ancient Greek coins or no real interest in numismatics buy them. So price is high.

Factoid: The Judd number for the ultra high relief lettered edge version is the same as its date ... 1907. If you think the regular high relief is expensive, ....

Cal

 

Can someone explain this ?

Ditto...what is this saying ?

Because of the high relief...or because the mintage production was low ?

Considering very few DE's (Liberty's and Saints) were actually used in commerce, I would think that production of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands would have sufficed, no ?

 

This is a VERY unique coin:

• It is a double eagle ($20).
• It is a gold coin
• It was the LAST gold coin made before FDR took us off the gold standard.
• The HR is a unique design and pattern plus a beautiful coin.

Add it all up, and it has lots of demand. I get what you are saying about absolute numbers but sometimes pedigree matters. And I think that 1907 HR's tend to be in what financial types call "strong hands" -- people who can afford financially and time-wise to hold the coin for many many years (often until their death).

Can you give an example ?

I think the coin is VERY LIQUID which means that just because there are lots available, there is also great demand and dealers know that the coins will sell at the current market price within a resonable period of time.

In other words, the dealer with 10 or 15 of them doesn't have to worry that the current price is going to fall and he's going to be stuck with the coins unless he cuts the price 30% in a few months or a year or so.

 

Since the 1907 High Relief coins had to be struck three times to bring up the design, the alignment and the dies had to be precise. Otherwise the devices could be doubled or they could be rendered less sharp or “mushy.” To achieve this, the thinking was that the same die pair had to used for each of the strikes. Even if a new set of dies was supposed to be identical with the dies used for the first or second strike, any variation would impair the quality of the coins.

When a coin is struck, the resulting surfaces are hard. If the coin is to be struck again, the planchet has be heated to soften it again to make the metal maluable.

Actually the demands of commerce required that millions of double eagles had to be made. If you look at the total mintages for all U.S. gold coins issued from 1795 to 1933 you will see that about half of them were double eagles. This is especially impressive you remember that the double eagle was not introduced until 1850.

Although people did not run around with double eagles in their pockets, large numbers of them were moved around in the banking system, including the international banking system. Large numbers of them survived, despite FDR's surrender order, because they were in Europe.

I remember reading a message that one of the mint officials wrote to Theordore Roosevlt after theh 1907 High Relief coins were made. He told Roosevelt in no uncertain terms that the size and capcity of the U.S. Mint System would have to be radically increased if the mint were to continue making the High Relief double eagles. Roosevelt saw the folly in that and backed down. He got his "pet babies" but in a very limited quantity.

 

Love the high relief. I think it’s strong money due to the demand but is one of those coins I’d love to own

 

Thanks John, great answers.....

Maine, yes, it's a beautiful coin. My goal for FUN 2021 is to be able to pruchase an AU-58 1907 HR....don't think I could afford an MS coin, and not sure in the low-60's if the extra $$$ are worth it (need to see lots more examples as most of my time has been spent on looking at 1923-D's the last year or so).

We'll see. If I fall $hort, I guess I will have some nice coin for a nice coin other than the 1907 HR.

JohnMilton, is that your coin in the pics above ? That has to be an MS-66+, maybe an MS-67 ? Unfreakin' believable...beautiful coin.